Citing the lengthy and difficult task of setting up the U.S.-run occupation government in Iraq after Saddam Hussein's ouster, Bush is proposing $100 million next year for a new conflict response fund and $24 million for a new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization in the State Department. That office will coordinate U.S. government efforts to support emerging democracies, with the new Active Response Corps of foreign and civil service officers as a crucial tool, Bush said.

The goal of unilateral American dominance in global politics and in global markets depends on the image and reality of American military invincibility, so that – with each passing day – the lack of victory in Iraq undermines the credibility of Washington's threats to force regime change wherever "rogue states" resist its diplomatic will. As Carter and Glastris wrote in their Washington Monthly article, "America has a choice. It can be the world's superpower, or it can maintain the current all-volunteer military, but it probably can't do both."

While visiting Vietnam last month, I wondered whether the Iraq war will leave behind Americans like Carl, graying vets who'd rather not talk about their sacrifices; whether the landscape in Iraq 30 years hence will be full of scars and memories; whether Iraqis will have settled into a similar peace troubled by lost brothers.

Iraq Force Is Seen As Likely To Grow