Best assessment yet of the situation in Iraq, from Air Force Col. Mike Turner (Ret.), who served on the planning staff for Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. We need to start talking about two different wars in Iraq. The original war in Iraq, the one that Bush planned and sold, was one that would transform the country from a hostile dictatorship into an allied democracy. As Kerry said, it was a war of choice, and it backfired.

So now we have an imminent second war in Iraq. This is going to be a brand new war of necessity, one that takes a failed state and tries to eliminate as many of the following as possible: a) havens for global Islamist terrorist group; b) regional instability; c) threats to the world oil supply; d) violent strains of Islamic fundamentalism; e) elements for civil war and genocide. "Stay the course" is a misnomer—Bush's war is over; we lost. Now it's time to go after an existing and growing threat to American security, and this is a whole new war.