April 9, 2004 - A year ago we saw a young marine scale the statue of Saddam Hussein, drape Old Glory across the statue’s face, and attach the cable that would bring the statue to the ground. It was a masterfully managed message. Even those who harbored great doubt as to the wisdom of the policy that had brought that young marine to that place felt a moment of patriotic pride in the accomplishments of our armies. They had, in three short weeks vanquished the boogey man and brought him, symbolically at least, to his knees.

A year has passed and the images are different. The cheering crowd has faded away. Our soldiers are again at the statue, this time methodically tearing down the taunting posters that appeared in the mystery of the night. Another marine in another Iraqi place carries the load of a body-bagged friend away from the face of battle. A cluster of comrades huddle in prayer over the body of another. A roasted human haunch swings from the girders of Fallujah Bridge to haunt our memories. Even those whose breasts swell with pride and forgive any missteps to advance the New American Century must pause with a moment of revulsion at the sight of the rider of the pale horse. War is coming home to our living rooms and to our cemeteries and its message has become unmanageable.

Forty or more, the reports are scattered and unconfirmed, coalition soldiers have joined that thin long line marching to eternity this Holy Week. In Mosul and Kirkuk; in Ramadi and Fallujah; in Kutt and Al Najaf and in the Baghdad streets the battles rage, a backdrop to the reassuring voices and pledges to stay the course whatever the cost; no matter how many more must join those phantom ranks. How many more must die for a failed policy before we cry, “Enough”? Make no mistake; the policy has failed even as the campaign to oust Saddam and his Baathist regime by force of arms has succeeded.

Facile analogies to Vietnam - to that failed policy of three decades ago - are temptingly close at hand. The similarities are there, an apparent military triumph that engendered a decade long debacle on the ground. We again find the question looming large – who will volunteer to be the last man to die for a
failed policy? But Iraq is not Vietnam. If we would understand events in Iraq
we must look to a different and more exact example. America is being taught the hard lesson learned by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan combined with the lesson that the British are still learning in Belfast.

Those who even as the columns raced northward from Kuwait predicted the chaos that Iraq has become should take no satisfaction from the accuracy of their foresight. Nor should the inevitable crushing of the present rebellion give those who rejoice in the count of Iraqi dead any comfort. The fact is that the stubborn policies of the present administration have made the emergence of a regime in Baghdad committed to an inclusive democracy friendly to the interests of the United States all but impossible. We cannot build; we cannot reconstruct their land to our liking. Only the Iraqi people can rebuild and refashion their nation. And that cannot occur until the Fourth Horseman dismounts.