America has played the role of the bull in the Iraqi china shop. It was inarguably not the most peaceful establishment in town to begin with; its “employees” have fought amongst themselves since the dawn of recorded history. But Iraq is their shop, and had no part in viciously assaulting our own on September 11, 2001. There is no credible evidence it has ever planned to do so.

The United States still plays the rampaging bull to the people of Iraq, swinging its horns wildly and destroying everything in sight. A bull is incapable of picking up the broken pieces, of walking cautiously and gently between the aisles. It has only two courses of action: to stay and continue to lay waste to the shop, or walk out the front door. As long as the bull stays, the Iraqi people will escalate their assaults to induce it to leave. But a bull is stubborn, and stubbornly believes it can kill all its enemies; such is the nature of bulls. But the rare smart and moral bull decides to walk out of the shop on its own, because it knows it cannot destroy all its enemies in the shop, and because it knows it has no business being in someone else’s shop in the first place.