I'm a contrarian. What can I say.

They are re-doing the intersection of two major highways in town. The two interstate highways cross right as they pass over a river next to a large hill, and both of these things make for a somewhat hazardous intersection, so the highway department split the river crossing in to four separate bridges, and take down part of the hill.

It's at least a six year process. They've been working on a plan for two years, it will take another two before they start, and then it will take at least two years after they start before they finish. The idea of changing the intersection has been floating out there for a good two decades.

So my question is this: If it takes at least six years just to re-do a single highway intersection, why do people think we should have things in Iraq done already? Six years for one intersection, and in five years we expected to make everything right in a country with a population of 25 million? How many bridges do we need to rebuild? How much infrastructure? How much organizational development should it take? Seriously, think about it - we thinks six years for a highway intersection is acceptable, but we want a whole country fixed in five?

That's why I'm reluctant to support the idea of pulling out of Iraq. This is not a movie, where everything gets fixed in a three hour span; this is reality where you shouldn't expect a nation that has gone through three wars in the past twenty years to be back on its feet in five.

Part of the problem is the notion that we are "at war" in Iraq. And so, since it has taken five years, we must losing "the war". We aren't at war in Iraq. The war ended a few months after it began. When you destroy the opposing army, occupy the capital, and execute their leader, you've won. This isn't a war, it's an occupation with violent dissident groups attempting to discourage us from rebuilding.

"War" is a great term for the news people. "War update" is so more exciting than "Occupation update". And the term "War" is better for getting money - it's for the "war effort" - in the short term.

In the long term though, it's better to think of Iraq's issues as involving two problems. The first is Iraq's rehabilitation and rebuilding. Rehabilitation and rebuilding are long term concepts. We can relate in terms of what it takes to build infrastructure here in the states. "Wars" are lost, rehabilitation and rebuilding just require different strategies. We don't give up on building large projects just because there are delays and unexpected cost overruns - we kind of expect them.

The second problem in Iraq is one of criminals. We understand that we can't totally ever "win" the war on crime, and that completely getting rid of groups like the mafia or the triads is a thing that may take decades. We can make progress at lowering their negative impact on society, but it's next to impossible to rid ourselves of their impact entirely. Better to think of the violence in Iraq as criminal in nature. Greater than in the U.S. because cultural and economic forces are different. And like in the U.S., these things that are worked on gradually.

The long term goal of dealing with Iraq's criminal issues and rehabilitating its infrastructure and government is useful to the U.S. because it will create a core of stability in a region of importance to us. Iran is on its way to the bomb, Saudi Arabia is a powder keg waiting to explode. Now that we are in Iraq, leaving would be a bad idea, because it would just encourage anarchy and lower our influence in the world.

And from everything we know, the majority of the Iraqi people want this to happen. They want the criminal issues dealt with. They want to go about their lives not having to worry about being kidnapped or blown up. They want solid infrastructure and a stable government. The majority are not in favor of the goals of the dissidents.

The flip side of this is the cost, and the possibility that instead of making progress, things will continue to deteriorate. I have some thoughts on this, and I'm still sort of up in the air, but this is enough for now.