Reaping the whirlwind.

There is simply no way to spin this as good news.

An unchastened insurgency sowed devastation across Iraq Wednesday as experts here said the country is either on the verge of civil war or already in the middle of it. In the course of the day: Four car bombs detonated in Baghdad; a man wearing explosives at an army recruitment center in Hawija, north of Baghdad, blew himself and many others up; a car bomb exploded in a marketplace in Tikrit, north of Baghdad; and the country's largest fertilizer plant was heavily damaged by a bomb in the usually quiet southern city of Basra. Meanwhile, U.S. Marines were winding up a remarkable pitched battle against surprisingly well-equipped and determined insurgents on Iraq's western border. Some 76 Iraqis were reported killed and more than 120 wounded in the one day of violence.

With security experts reporting that no major road in the country was safe to travel, some Iraq specialists speculated that the Sunni insurgency was effectively encircling the capital and trying to cut it off from the north, south and west, where there are entrenched Sunni communities. East of Baghdad is a mostly unpopulated desert bordering on Iran.

I recommend you read the whole article. The only question left now is whether the civil war has just begun or has been underway for some time. I take no pleasure in saying "we told you so," but we told you so.

I constantly heard arguments leading up to and during the invasion that if we didn't remove Hussein, then he would just stay in power until he died, to be replaced by one of his sons. I think the latter is false: Qusay was an ineffectual drunk and Udai was hated and arguably psychopathic. The idea that either of them could hold power for any amount of time is questionable at best. The death or fall of Saddam (and I don't think lifelong rule was in any way guaranteed, either) would likely have set off a series of palace coups and an ugly civil war, which is, of course, where Iraq is probably headed now, no matter what we do.

But at least then we wouldn't be stuck in the middle of it, having claimed responsibility for the entire horrific affair. [...] We cannot control this situation. We will not control this situation. How many people - Americans and Iraqis - are we willing to sacrifice before we admit it?

A whopping lot, as it turns out. I wrote that in August 2003. It took a bit longer than I expected to really erupt, but now it has. No major road in the country is safe to travel. Daily civilian death tolls are in double or triple digits. Baghdad gets electricity for eight hours a day with the rest of the country lagging behind that. The oil industry is unable to get production back to pre-war levels. Reconstruction money has disappeared down black holes. And the DoD still has that $300 billion charge sitting on its MasterCard for this lovely state of affairs.

Here's your war, Mr. Bush, the one you proactively sought, the one for which you invented evidence, the one over which your salad-tossing sycophants demonized opponents as, at best, soft-headed and cowardly and at worst, traitorous and anti-American. And for the war supporters in both parties, please look at the carnage that you enabled. Look at the arc of violence (because we're nowhere near the top yet) and tell me how, two years after the fact, you were correct and Iraq is better off than it was before we invaded. Please, look me in the eyes and tell me, so I can decide whether you are hopelessly deluded, grossly dishonest, or just starkly amoral.