I’ve just returned from three weeks in Iraq, where I traveled from Mosul to Baghdad to Nasiriyah to Fallujah. It’s hard to reconcile what I saw with the pep talk from the White House.

I think a decent Iraq result can still be salvaged, but only if the Bush team starts being honest with the U.S. public about the postwar situation and starts being more honest with itself.

The overwhelming feeling in Iraq today is of a train without an engine. Yes, the Kurdish north and the Shiite south are quiet, while the Sunni triangle roils and bombs go off in Baghdad. But the whole population is beset by uncertainty about security and jobs and U.S. intentions.

Iraqis are uncertain with good reason. The U.S. occupation of Iraq still appears to be operating without a clear plan.

The Pentagon has admitted (in a secret, leaked postwar report) that planning for the postwar occupation was minimal. That was obvious, although the administration still officially denies it. Occupation authorities are still playing catch-up, and postwar planners still can’t cope with the growing problems in Iraq.

Just as U.S. officials were unprepared for massive postwar looting, so they’ve been unprepared for terrorism and guerrilla attacks. They’ve also been unable to get an Iraqi political process under way.

How is it possible that after seven months the occupation is beset by such incoherence? One key reason: The use of mistaken historical models for Iraqi occupation have created confusion about our role there.

The favorite historical analogy used by senior Pentagon officials was badly mistaken. They drew a parallel with post-World War II France and expected exile leader Ahmad Chalabi to return like

de Gaulle and install democracy.

This is one reason the Pentagon was so ill prepared for The Day After. False historic parallels haven’t ceased; President Bush still cites the examples of postwar Germany or Japan. They were wholly defeated countries that had no choice but to accept lengthy occupations.

It’s way past time to recognize that neither of these examples is relevant.

Iraq is a “liberated” nation in the Muslim Middle East. The time is 2003, not the early 1900s, when Great Britain could settle in for a long occupation in Baghdad.

No matter how much the president proclaims that he’ll stay the course, the time frame for this occupation is limited. If it exceeds a couple of years, the majority Iraqi Shiite Muslims will turn against us. Planning for this occupation must take these time limits into account.

Yet the president talks as if U.S. officials had time unlimited to establish Iraqi democracy. Bush is building up expectations for a Baghdad political miracle that are bound to be dashed.

U.S. policy is further befuddled by poor postwar military planning. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s talk about cutting back U.S. troop levels depends on turning over key security responsibility to Iraqis (he claims there are now 118,000 Iraqi forces).

But most of these are poorly trained Iraqi police or security guards, ill-equipped to take on Saddamists or terror bombers. Nor are U.S. officials setting up the kind of Iraqi forces that can relieve American troops of such duties. One senior U.S. official in Baghdad told me the Iraqis now being trained could be compared to the “local auxiliaries who were integrated into the Roman legions” that patrolled the Roman empire. This isn’t designed to get us out of Iraq soon.

Meantime, the U.S. military strategy to fight Saddam bitter-enders also seems incoherent. Some U.S. commanders have wooed restive Sunnis back into the tent, while others treat Sunni tribal leaders as if they were Palestinians in the West Bank. No lessons seem to be drawn as to which strategies work and which boomerang.

It’s time for the president to take charge and inject some order into Iraq policy.

Iraqi elections must be held relatively soon — even if they result in a weak government that may not be to America’s liking.

A legitimate Iraqi government may be able to attract more international peacekeepers. Meantime, units of the disbanded Iraqi army should be recalled and an Iraqi paramilitary force trained — even though this may be risky.

And the administration must be more honest in talking to Americans about Iraq’s future. As Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain warned, the quickest way to lose American public support is to make Vietnam-like claims about a nonexistent “light at the end of the tunnel.”

Having entered Iraq, it would be disastrous to be driven out, leaving chaos and increased terrorism behind. But dissembling about Iraq will lead us in that direction. It’s time for the president to start telling some hard truths.

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.