■"American attitude on Iraq similar to thosein Vietnam: more than half in poll want troopshome within year," by Susan Page, USA Today, 16 November 2005, p. 1A.

More than half of Americans would like the troops home within a year, but 40 percent don't want them home earlier than they should be--however that is defined.

Two points: Iraq can be described as our 6th (Kurds), 7th (Shiia) and 8th (Sunnis) nation-building efforts since the end of the Cold War. Bush the Elder started the first one (Somalia), and Clinton triggered three (Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo). Bush started four (the Iraq trio plus the earlier Afghanistan).

Make no mistake: there will be more nation-building efforts: following civil wars and strife, following disasters, following coups and state collapses, and following regime change engineered by Core powers (but hopefully never so "unilaterally" as Iraq was perceived to be).

No more Iraqs? Definitely. I don't want to see that peace-waging effort made again. But remember this: America loved the war that saw three weeks of combat and less than 150 combat dead. What America hates is the peace that has yet to be won comprehensively (i.e., the Sunni effort), and the almost 2k lost in that difficult effort.

The Army and Marines adjust from here on out by working on making that 2k of casualties not happen again the next time, because they know--deep down--there will be next times. The Gap isn't going away on its own. We'll go in, for one reason or another.

The only question is, Do you want America and the Core as a whole to get good at this? Or for American to remain far too incompetent at this second-half, peace-waging effort?

Rest assured: somebody will be going into Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) in coming months/years to make that outcome work. The odds of the locals pulling that off on their own is rather fantastic.

And then think about Syria down the road as well.

Somebody will be going in to make that post-whatever situation work better. If we don't get good at it, and I mean all the way through to sustainable economic development (not dependency on aid, mind you, but serious local private entrepreneurship), then we will not see peace nor stability in the region, and we'll end up pulling out the Leviathan again.