Cut and run.

Practically everyone, even those who would like to throttle George Bush for getting us into Iraq, now agrees that we should not "cut and run," that we must "stay the course." I don't. I would announce we're leaving in one year. The Iraqis, die-hard Saddamists aside, will be much more likely to cooperate with us in getting the country running again if they know that we're leaving on a sure date. Most Iraqis, even the many who dislike Saddam, don't want us telling them what to do.

Even our own hired hands are against us. An officer of the Iraqi police force employed by us recently told a Washington Post reporter: "In my heart, deep inside, we are with [the resisters] against the occupation. This is my country, and I encourage them."

The reason Rumsfeld and Rice have been peddling the fiction that there was significant resistance to our occupation in Germany is that they need to obscure the fact that our staying the course in Germany and Japan was based on the reality that practically all of their people either wanted us to stay, or were willing to put up with us.