Okay, so Iraq is a disaster. James Baker III and Lee Hamilton have told us so. We can finally end that debate. They've been all over the Sunday talk shows making that point, and, of course, they are right.

But then, their report is a disaster, too.

Why? Because it's a political document, one designed to get a delusional president to take a few baby steps (which he has already dismissed out of hand) to try to mitigate the disaster. The Iraq Study Group (ISG)'s understanding of the scope of the disaster is understated compared to how it really is playing out in Iraq, but at least it's a fair attempt at an objective assessment (i.e., telling us what we already know). But its prescriptions are all non-starters (Privatize Iraqi oil! Inject more advisers and train an Iraqi army! Say, I wonder why nobody's tried all that?) (Or, to reprise a childhood taunt, you and what army?) And while such inanities are soberly and endlessly bandied about, nobody, but nobody in the Beltway political and media elite has been able to get it through their thick heads that as we endure this tedious process of trying to get American decision-makers to acknowledge reality, nobody in the rest of the world is waiting for them.

The decisions on the future of Iraq are being made right now in Iraq, not Washington, and on this point the ISG is as clueless as everyone else inside the self-important Beltway. Every two-bit politician in Washington has been asked what they think of the report, but almost nobody has asked Iraqis. Over there, the response frequently bordered on contempt. A representative response, from Iraq's President, Jalal Talibani: "The report has a mentality that we are a colony where they impose their conditions and neglect our independence." Exactly. And Talibani is a Kurd, the closest thing America has to an ally in Iraq.

The ISG, and Washington in general, even while reluctantly acknowledging that we're getting our butts kicked in Iraq, and even while admitting to no new ideas as to how to change that situation, continue to act as though we have all the time in the world to sort the whole thing out. The ISG delayed release of their report not only until after the Nov. 7 election, but for a full month thereafter. Meanwhile, in that month, Iraqis, who do not give a rat's ass about internal American politics, continued killing Americans and other Iraqis. In that extra month alone, thousands of Iraqis died, thousands more had their lives destroyed, thousands more were forced out of their communities or the country. And America spent another $20 billion or so it doesn't have.

However, the ISG is not alone in fiddling while Iraq, and America, burns. Dubya has pledged to dump this mess in someone else's lap in 2009, more than two years off. New Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, so impressing the Senate with his rare "candor" that he was confirmed last week by a 95-2 vote (the two nays coming from hardline Republicans), foresaw that we'd be in Iraq "a long time." Bush, Gates, and the ISG all refused to set any sort of timetable for withdrawal.

That's actually fairly wise, because there's zero evidence that we're the ones in any sort of position to be setting any timetables. It's being done for us. The British are already being forced out of Southern Iraq; the Americans are now powerless in Anbar province to the west. Before Bush leaves office, we could easily see the Mahdi Army overrunning the Green Zone, and the Americans and the last Iraqi quislings fleeing by helicopter all over again.

Having the Americans leave, by whatever means, might be very good for all Iraqis. The argument that our troops are, by their presence, preventing chaos is beyond absurd; we created the chaos, on a daily basis we're exacerbating it. The legitimate debate isn't whether to call the current mess a civil war; it's whether to call it genocide.

We started the civil war, we at minimum started and funded the death squads, we've backed one side of the civil war (the Shiite-controlled government) and given it mountains of weapons and training. We are neither a peacemaker nor a neutral arbiter in the situation, our presence is resented by all sides, and our exit can do nothing but reduce the violence. Moreover, no other international body can consider intervening in what is now a humanitarian catastrophe so long as we're there, both because Bush won't let them and because going in with America still there risks the appearance of endorsing Bush's folly. Our exit can only help save lives.

But if Iraqis force out America, they will also be doing America a tremendous favor. When in a hole, if you won't stop digging, someone must seize your shovel. And if you keep scooping with your hands, they should knock you over the head with it. It's been widely noted that America is in a hole in terms of its damaged (and already somewhat mythic) international credibility and "moral authority" due to this war. It is also worsening our record trade deficit as people avoid American products in the Muslim world and elsewhere. And it is costing us money we simply don't have--an estimated $240 or so billion in 2007, a staggering number that will inevitably go up (along with the casualty rate) as the year goes on. The dollar is already tanking against foreign currencies, costing our economy further.

This war is a threat to our own national security every week that it continues. It will be a blessing when our Beltway know-nothings are overrun by current events and either the American public or (more likely) Iraqis themselves force this country out of Iraq. As a bonus, it will provide a conclusive answer to the day's other major debate: whether or not George W. Bush is the worst president in American history.