jkm:

Interesting, isn't it that, like Viet Nam, some of us have experienced a country that we will all be linked to.

Ditto on the decision-higher ups, and ditto on helping Iraqis.

I did an infrastructure, econ and pop assessment in Jan 2008, and rapidly figured out that, after decades of sanctions and mismanagement, the whole affair could have been pushed over with a few well-placed feathers, but, the pregnant question was always "What happens next?"

That was the question that all of us, and the Iraqis, participated in answering---the hard way. Like Ricks said, the final chapters will be written by the Iraqis, not us, and, despite the appearance of turmoil, I have a sneaking suspicion that, one day, some of us will go as tourists to see the now-restored monuments we saw only as dust-heaps.

My prayers are that the answers for our dead and injured come from that future, which, like a bricklayer for the Empire State Building, will always be "our" building... and even with friends who died building it.

I was very pleased to see that, after all the sturm-unt-drang about the election, it opens with Allawi, the initial winner having the first opportunity to form a new government. Far from over, but small steps for a whole troubled country are, in fact, big steps.