How does Iraq turn the page, as we retreat to secure bases and prepare to bring home the last 50,000 troops?
Terrorism has returned. Iraq's casualties are back up to where they were before the U.S. surge. Electricity is off much of the time. Six months after elections, no government exists. The Iraqi dead, wounded, widowed, orphaned, homeless and exiled are surely not better off.
What about those we leave behind? What happens to Iraqis who worked with us when we leave? How did our Vietnamese friends fare? What kind of future will Iraqis have, if civil and sectarian war return?
That our soldiers, Marines, diplomats and aid workers did their jobs bravely and honorably is understood by their countrymen -- and attested to by the fact the U.S. military is the most respected of our institutions.
But was the war worth it? Some 72 percent of Americans said in a recent CBS poll that it was not worth the price in U.S. war dead.
What does the secretary of defense think?
"It really requires a historian's perspective in terms of what happens here in the long run," says Robert Gates. "How it all weighs in the balance over time remains to be seen." A seven-year war, and our minister of defense cannot declare that it was all worth it.
But if America is not a certain winner from this war, who is?
Iran saw its great enemy Saddam removed and its Shia allies come to power in Baghdad. Osama bin Laden saw America bled by wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and perhaps Iran, as al Qaeda has spread to Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.
And as America was tied down in the Long War, China emerged as the world's No. 1 auto producer, No. 1 manufacturer, No. 1 exporter and No. 2 economy.
Meanwhile, The Washington Times reports,
"The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state."
What does it profit America if we save Anbar and lose Arizona?