Is there any decent way out of Iraq?

This is the question being asked by many Americans in light of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the beheading horror and the growing chaos of U.S. occupation.

There is an answer, but it isn’t new. It has been obvious for months, but the administration has been unwilling to face it.

It’s time for the United States to hand Iraq back to the Iraqis. Iraqis need the chance to choose their own government — soon.

On Dec. 7, 2003, I wrote: “Early elections in Iraq may be the only way to curb the insurgency by Saddam Hussein’s bitter-enders and pave the way for drawing down U.S. troops. If Iraq is to be stabilized, its people need a government they can identify with.

“The occupation authority is locked away behind security barriers, and the appointed Iraqi Governing council has little credibility with its people. This breeds alienation and conspiracy theories about U.S. intentions; many Iraqis believe the United States wants to rule indefinitely and take their oil.”

The security situation in Iraq has only gotten worse in the last five months. But elections are not scheduled until December or January 2005.

They should be moved up to September.

That’s the only way to convince angry Iraqis that America really has benign intentions. It’s the only way to undercut Iraqi insurgents, by focusing the population’s energies on choosing their own government.

Yet the administration has repeatedly rejected the idea of an early Iraqi ballot. The current plan is to turn over limited sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30. In desperation, U.S. officials have turned to U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to put together an interim government by that date, which will replace the governing council.

In the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, this plan is too little, too late. The new government will lack the legitimacy of being elected, which will undercut Brahimi’s best efforts. Nor is it clear whether the new body will have any say over the actions of U.S. military forces, or over the spending of U.S. aid money. No one knows whether it can gain crucial acceptance from the leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who insists that only an elected government can be legitimate.

If violence continues, U.S. and U.N. officials may be tempted to postpone elections beyond January, which will only make a bad situation worse.

U.S. officials want to delay elections because they can’t control the results. The best organized parties are religious Shiite groups. Former Baathists would probably make a strong showing. The resulting government might not be what the Bush team had in mind.

But the alternative is much more perilous. Even the strongest Iraqi supporters of the invasion have lost confidence in America’s good intentions.

They recognize the Abu Ghraib scandal pales beside the torture practiced by Saddam’s thugs. But they see the scandal as the latest in a long series of U.S. blunders that have left the country in chaos and increased the appeal of insurgents.

“Right now, we don’t know what we are struggling for,” says Zaim Khairallah, a businessman from a prominent Shiite tribal family that supported the invasion. “Unless you tell us now there will be elections, you won’t make it to (elections) next January.”

Khairallah — and others — say the best way to separate the majority of Sunnis from Sunni insurgents would be to hold elections, which would divert tribal leaders into politics. They also say a ballot would rally the majority of Shiites to stand up against the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr, especially if he used violence to interfere with the vote.

Yes, terrorists would try to bomb the polls, but an election would inspire Iraqis to risk the danger. U.N. officials claim they need eight months to organize elections, but Iraqi officials dispute this. The Iraqi census bureau suggested that schoolteachers could do a quick census over the summer to establish voter rolls.

Even U.S. neocons have discovered the virtue of early elections, which their leading journal, The Weekly Standard, championed in its latest issue. The White House, despite its promotion of Mideast democracy, has yet to endorse an early ballot.

It’s time for President Bush to get on the Iraq freedom train.

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