Rocky road to peace

Stabilizing Iraq is now reminding me of long car rides from my childhood. Even though the destination seemed wonderful, no matter how much time had passed and no matter how much terrain we had covered, it still felt like it took an eternity to get there. I fidgeted; buckled into the backseat I was uncomfortable. I wanted to know, are we almost there?\nAs for Iraq, the pictures and stories coming from the war-torn country in the last few weeks have been a startlingly stark affirmation we still have a long way to go.\nCivilians and innocents are being kidnapped. Radical clerics are exploiting anti-U.S. sentiments and are encouraging revolts against soldiers. Liberated cities are falling to insurgents.\nWith more than one year under our belt, more than $100 billion spent and more than 600 American lives lost, there is no safety in Iraq. We have disposed of an awful dictator (that's the defense I hear most often) whom we are told conducted unspeakable cruelties to his people -- I'm happy he's gone. But we must stand in err when we are unable to separate his presence and Iraq's safety. He may be gone, but that does not necessarily say Iraqis are safe.\nNow we are caught in a crisis. How, and when, do we leave? After all, we must leave sometime. Sooner is better than later, but leaving Iraq in tatters is worse than leaving a country to the citizens with which they can work.\nIt's doubtful we will make our self-imposed deadline of June 30 to hand over the sovereignty of Iraq to Iraq, even if we can figure out to whom exactly we're handing it over.\nThe goal of the June 30 deadline was political and not practical; to avoid Iraq becoming the Q-word: quagmire. This is the notorious word brandished upon the Vietnam War, the idea that, the merits of our presence aside, leaving would only make things worse. \nThere are sufficient differences between Iraq and Vietnam (one year versus two decades, just for one example), but the comparison is not unwarranted. We do run a serious risk of either becoming perpetually stuck in a country we can't fix or folding our cards and conceding there's nothing else we can do. And nobody seems comfortable with either.\nMy opposition to the war always laid in two facts: the administration did not provide substantial evidence to its real claims (the WMD, if you'll remember) of why we went to war, nor did it provide any sufficient exit plan strategy. If it had only answered my two concerns, I -- and many other Americans -- would have climbed on board.\nThe Bush administration needs to rethink this mess. Even if you can stretch your imagination and grant it the benefit of the doubt on WMD, you're still left with: why didn't the administration have a viable exit plan? If Bush thought rebuilding was going to be a cake-walk, that proves a serious breach of competence on his behalf. Now journalists and citizens are forced to attempt to fill in the blank space of an exit strategy the administration should have provided.\nI avoided writing about Iraq for more than a year. My mistake was I brushed off the war as merely inevitable, and wrote about other topics. I admit my mistake (it's not too late for Bush to admit his), and now write my concerns when the prospect of losing the peace is becoming more and more inevitable.\nI'm at the front of the line wishing and hoping someone pulls out some miraculous plan that will get us out of Iraq. But I can't help but feel like that helpless little kid fidgeting in the back of the car again. \nPresident Bush, are we almost there?