54 per cent of the country and an even larger percentage of the Democratic Party want some type of plan for getting out of Iraq. Yet the Democrats, who won the election in no small part because of their support of some kind of troop redeployment, flail hopelessly and ineffectively in Congress, paralyzed with fear that someone will label them “soft on Defense,” or worse, “betrayers of ‘the Troops,’” who apparently should be in Iraq for the rest of the 21st Century just to keep us from “emboldening the Enemy.”

I’m tired of the buzz words, the sound bites and the rest of the bullshit. Iraq is a disaster, a sectarian civil war, a toilet of religious and ethnic hate that can never be flushed. Although I have always contended that the invasion was a gross blunder, largely because of the administration’s complete lack of interest in the political and ethnic situation that has haunted the country since its founding, I think it’s clear now to everyone that Iraq will not be a beacon of Democracy. Rather, it is a flashpoint for the growing regional conflict between Sunni and Shiite Islam.

And our policy within this conflict makes no sense. Apparently we’re allied with the Saudis, who are trying to fight back the rising Iranian influence, yet the Saudis bankrolled and funded the Sunni terrorists who hit us on 9/11. In Iraq, though, we’re allied with the Shiite factions, backed by Iran, and fighting the Sunnis. Talk about your mixed messages. I understand nuance is appropriate in foreign policy, but this goes beyond nuance — it’s absolutely insane. The truth is, both sides view us as an enemy — the entire region despises us. Whether they hated us before 9/11, or following the Iraq war, isn’t the issue. Sunni and Shiite Arabs agree on one thing and that is that the United States is their enemy (well, they also agree that Israel is their enemy, but that goes without saying).

Look, I’m no dove. I believe there are plenty of situations where war is a perfectly good solution to a disagreement — hell, there’s nothing more effective then a bloody nose to get someone to the negotiating table, or make them cave to your will. But war is only effective when you have a clear objective and an easily definable enemy. The administration’s catch all opponent, “The Terrorists,” is actually a label that describes any number of factions and groups with widely varying goals. Asymmetrical warfare is a tough business, and if the Russians can’t beat the Chechynian rebels, the French couldn’t beat the Algerians, and we couldn’t defeat the North Vietnamese, then it’s pretty clear that history is against us on this.

Maybe the Democrats should wake up and realize that they will lose in the long run if they don’t do something to end the war. History will judge the administration harshly for its blunders in the Iraq — if the Democrats in congress don’t want to be viewed forever as enablers of that failed policy, then they need to step up and do something.