The endgame on Iraq began a long time ago Ö

■"Antiwar Rallies in Washington and Other Cities ," by Michael Janofsky, New York Times, 25 September 2005, pulled from web.

■" How to Pitch the Military When a War Drags On?" by Timothy L. O'Brien, New York Times, 25 September 2005, pulled from web.

■"A Shift on Iraq: The Generals Plan a Slow Exit," op-ed by David Ignatius, , 26 September 2005, p. A23.

Antiwar rallies reflect a still small but growing sense of fatigue on Iraq, one that's reflected in the Pentagon's growing difficulty in recruiting as more and more personnel in the Guard and Reserves have cracked the code that SysAdmin work means they're far more likely to spend time deployed than in the old, familiar Cold War model.

Ignatius's op-ed on Abizaid's long-term plan to reduce the role and prominence and numbers of U.S. troops in Iraq reflects all these realities, but likewise the sheer passage of time and the build-up of effort to train Iraqi security troops. Critics will say Bush is pulling out in the face of defeat and low morale, but this was always the plan: train up the Iraqis and pull American troops off the streets and increasingly hide them in forts, letting the Iraqi security forces do the bulk fighting.

This is Musab al-Zarqawi's worst nightmare: the Americans safe behind their compound walls and everyday he's doing battle against Iraqis, or-more to the point-against Shiites increasingly backed by Iran, no friend to the global Salafi jihadist movement, being as it is exclusively Sunni in make-up. Meanwhile Kurdistan gets stronger and the "failed state" scenario for Iraq is reduced to its irreducible one-fifth outcome: the 20% of the population that's Sunni live an existence you wouldn't wish upon your worst enemy.

Pretty it ain't, but realistic it was always. Bush's critics may crow about the "failure" of "Jeffersonian democracy," but that asinine point won't be remembered by history. What will be remembered is that Saddam was taken down, the pretend state of Iraq returned to its constituent parts, and the Middle East was never the same again.

We got what we wanted in Iraq, and we triggered plenty of tumult and change in the region. Now that the endgame becomes obvious to critics and supporters alike, the real question we need to ask ourselves is, What do we seek to accomplish next in the region?

Not, Who do we invade next? Or what do we seek to prevent? But what do we seek to accomplish? What better Middle East are we working toward?

Bush's Greater Middle East Initiative seems to have been reduced to just a Lesser Iraq (Sunni) Compromise (i.e., we let the Kurds and the Shiites gang up both constitutionally and militarily on the battling Sunnis as the price for our reduced role). Perfectly fine dynamic, and very realistic, but what do we seek to accomplish beyond that narrow goal?

What is the Bush White House' big picture on the Middle East beyond the initial Big Bang of removing Saddam? Is it just long-term isolation of Iran? Because if that's all it is, that's just continuing a policy that's gotten us nowhere in a quarter century.

Surely Condi Rice is contemplating something-anything? She's got two-plus years and a pretty long leash, as SECSTATEs go, so what are we waiting for. Or is isolating Iran over WMDs all that there is from here on out?