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The United States was seriously defeated in Iraq by Iraqi nationalism - mostly by nonviolent resistance. The United States could kill the insurgents, but they couldn't deal with half a million people demonstrating in the streets.

It's what the Iraqi people are going through right now. They have encountered a victorious, hostile force-but, you know, there they still are. There their culture is, there their history is, they're not going anywhere.

If there is anything worse than international warfare, is civil warfare, and the United States was destined to experience it in the extreme of bitterness.

In a way, the American side descended to Saddam's level, which happens often in these types of circumstances. That is why the people in Iraq do not accept the current state of affairs.

The United States encouraged Iraqis to rise up after Saddam Hussein's army was driven out of Kuwait. Washington assumed Saddam was weak after losing the 1991 Gulf War. Iraqis rose up, but Saddam's troops killed thousands - Iraqis say tens of thousands - in a counter-offensive.

Saddam Hussein has been brutal against his people, but when he was committing those crimes, the international community did not come to the rescue of the Iraqis.

It is hard as an American to support the failure of American military operations in Iraq. Such failure will bring with it the death and wounding of many American service members, and many more Iraqis.

Violence can succeed, as Americans know well from the conquest of the national territory. But at terrible cost. It can also provoke violence in response, and often does.

We should have done more damage to the Iraqi forces before they withdrew from the Kuwaiti theater.

Mission accomplished, we didn't have any problems as far as violence goes.