The road out of Iraq runs right over the corpse of Bush's presidency.

The first step in getting out of Iraq is to blame George W. Bush.

This is a serious suggestion. It is neither facetious nor partisan.

It would be wonderful if the occupation were going to lead to the creation of a stable, secular, self-sustaining democracy. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Chaos and disorder are increasing.The best prediction is that the country is headed toward full-scale civil war. It will end with Iraq divided along ethnic and religious lines. At least one segment will have an Islamic government closely tied to Iran. Our presence seems to be making things worse. Nor has anyone suggested some alternative way of running the war that might work better.

Realistically, there is nothing to be done but to get out.

One of the sanest comments that I have heard from the news media lately.

The solution is to rebrand the war. It's not America's war, it's not a war on terror, it has to be labeled as George Bush's war. It needs to be established in the popular mind that it's Mr. Bush's personal war, that he led us into for his own political and psychological reasons - it was not about security, not about weapons of mass destruction, not even about terrorists. That he lied to the American people and effectively conned us into following him, and that once in the war, he planned it foolishly and led it ineffectively.

Most important, George Bush has already lost the war.

If it is Mr. Bush's war, not America's, it is patriotic to end it.

If he conned us into it, then there is no dishonor in repudiating it. Indeed, it is forthright, honest and courageous to stand up and say there was a terrible mistake made, we will do all we can to correct it.

If he has already lost it, then leaving is not cutting and running, it is cleaning up someone else's mess. It's better than that. Indeed, it is the only courageous, honorable and decent choice.

What is so odd is that I had this exact same discussion with my mother last night on the phone. My Mom, bless her heart, voted for George Bush because she believed that he was the only one who could get us out of the Iraq mess. She believed that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda and everything else that the administration lied about.

Now she has trouble with the idea of "cutting and running" so I explained, almost verbatim to the above article, what we needed to do to make a clean break. (Well as clean as is possible at this point!)

It is Bush's war. He owns it. The fault lies solely at his feet. Our nations healing cannot happen as long as he is in the White House.