The Bush administration went blundering into Iraq full of belligerence and exaggerated claims of WMD but no realistic exit strategy, the holy grail of all U.S. military action since Vietnam.
Now the remaining coalition forces struggle to maintain order in a country that doesn’t want them, barely functions, and isn’t structured for the kind of democracy America has in mind. Our soldiers are being picked off one by one by a populace that sees the American forces as just another dictatorial regime, merely the latest in a long line of rulers under whom the people have suffered.
Knowing their history, or at least what they've seen on TV, Americans have little patience for foreign entanglements that stretch out for weeks and months with few accomplishments and no resolution in sight. They have even less patience for seeing their countrymen and women blown up with grenades and attacked by ambushes day after day.
The American occupation of Iraq could last for years, with an untold number of deaths, or - given that the public simply doesn't have the stomach for a war of attrition - Bush could withdraw the troops, leaving a debacle behind. In either case, Muslims throughout the Middle East will have yet another reason to hate America, and we will all be less safe because of it.
Bush should know this, but it appears he does not.
