Scales are falling from the eyes of war-supporters

Fareed Zakaria has finally seent he light. And before the election, too.

It is time to call an end to the tests, the six-month trials, the waiting and watching, and to recognize that the Iraqi government has failed. It is also time to face the terrible reality that America's mission in Iraq has substantially failed.

More waiting is unlikely to turn things around, nor will more troops.....Nor will new American policies help. The reason that the Democrats seem to lack good, concrete suggestions on Iraq is that the Bush administration has actually been pursuing more-sensible policies for more than a year now, trying vainly to reverse many of its errors. But what might well have worked in 2003 is too little, too late in 2006.

Zakaria deserting the cause is a heavy blow to the war-hawks cause. Let him be the first of many.

Now it is time to start a serious discussion about whats next. I have a couple of ideas, and my brother, the retired Lt. Colonel vetted them for me. Here are the three things we believe need to happen:

First, start pulling troops back to Qatar and Kuwait. Let all of the stop-loss indentured servants come home by Thanksgiving. Bring home all of the troops who have had their tours extended, and every troop who is on their third tour in the same timeframe. The only troops remaining in Iraq in 90 days should be embedded special forces advisors.

Second, start bringing home the National Guard. They have born the brunt of all this madness. They deserve to come home and stay home. And they deserve an appology from this administration. Sure. That'll happen.

Third, after the troops have been pulled back to Qatar and Kuwait, and given a chance to rest up and relax, after they have seen their families and are refreshed, send an adequate force to Afghanistan before we lose that country too.

It takes a big man to admit an error - and we have a petulant little boy currently occupying the oval and toting the football - so I have no illusion that he will ever cowboy up. He will go to his grave thinking he was right, Darth Cheney was right, Condi was right and Rummy was double-plus right. He will take to his grave the belief that Generals Powell, Clark, Shinseki, Batiste, Newbold, Zinni, Eaton, Riggs and all the others were misguided and wrong.