Ledeen teaches me more about the ME and the WOT than any other commentator. But often his policy prescriptions do not follow directly from his arguments (e.g., "faster, please" is typically a huge logical leap from whatever he has written) and those arguments often have huge, unstated assumptions that are key to his reasoning.
In this case, Ledeen assumes that the Iraqis can not stand up for themselves. Of course, that would be dangerous. Of course, freedom requires extraordinary personal sacrifices, and often one's own life. Of course, it would be asking more than would be reasonable for Maliki and others to give up their lives for freedom. Of course. But if they want freedom; if they love it; then there is no other choice.
Part of the solution in Iraq is for the US to stand firm, as Ledeen asserts. More important, though, is that the Iraqis love and desire freedom so much that nothing else matters in the end, including their own lives and the lives of the family and friends that they hold most dear. The United States can help the Iraqis win this war. They can not win it for them. Ledeen totally and completely misses this.
Fighting and winning a transcivilizational war is radically different from an inracivilizational one. The measure of victory is breaking of the enemy's will to fight [where's a will, there'll be a way - look at Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a very good illustration] - and when this will is rooted in the enemy's very civilizational identity, breaking it is an extremely dirty and bloody business.