Today, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich take to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to argue that the solution to Iraq is … workfare.

Color me skeptical.

This strikes me as an idea — like the Surge — that might have had a chance within the first six months after the invasion, but which is monumentally underwhelming approaching the end of year four. We had a window where people were willing to listen to us, willing to cooperate with us, willing to ally with us. Now, Iraq is in a state of full-fledged anarchy/civil war. With scores of bodies turning up beheaded every other day in Baghdad, I’m not sure the situation is quite comparable — even at a theoretical level — to New York City in the 1990s.

I’d love to think reconstruction money could solve our problems — I’d rather America spend cash than blood to end this mess. But it seems like worse than wishful thinking.