Now that the political conventions are over, the voters have some basis on which to judge how the candidates would handle the Iraq issue. From what we’ve heard so far, however, there’s little reason to hope a flawed U.S. policy will improve.

President Bush has the greatest responsibility to deliver the straight talk, since he’s responsible for the Iraq mess and is in charge for at least the next four months.

In New York City, he once again linked the Iraq war rhetorically to Sept. 11, 2001, and to the threat that Saddam Hussein would hand weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. Once again, he implied such links were the justification for the invasion.

Since there is no evidence of such links (and no Iraqi WMD), the nation is none the wiser as to the real rationale for the Iraq war.

But let’s leave aside the issue of why we went into Iraq. What the United States must now confront are the links between Iraq and terrorism that have developed since the Iraq war. Unless Iraq is stabilized, those links could get much more serious.

The president’s proposals to make Iraq more secure were brief: train its army, move toward elections, and get to democracy “as quickly as possible.” Then, he said, “our troops will return home with the honor they have earned.”

Bush went on to refer doubters to the American experience in West Germany, where in 1946 U.S. commentators were writing about an acute sense of crisis in the occupation. The implication was that if America would only stand firm, Iraq could become just like the German democracy.

Such false parallels are what got the Bush team into trouble in Iraq in the first place. Unless the president gets real about Iraq, our troops will ultimately be forced out and we will leave chaos behind.

Iraq is not in the middle of 20th-century industrial Europe. Nor do we have a historic parallel with the Cold War, where West Germans had a choice of going along with their occupier or being absorbed by their archenemy, the Soviets. Nor were Germans deeply divided by ethnicity or religious sects, or engaged in a vicious postwar insurgency.

Iraq is a Muslim country in the middle of a region where youths are susceptible to the appeals of Islamists who rail against past and present occupations of Arab land by foreign forces. No Western power can remain as an occupier for more than a limited period without fueling resistance.

Iraq now has a nominally sovereign government, but it depends on 140,000 U.S. troops and U.S. funding. Iraq is so divided by ethnicity and religion that the United States may never be able to train a viable national army. That leaves U.S. soldiers fighting insurgents.

Most Sunni Iraqis, the community that had the most power under Saddam, deeply resent the U.S. presence. Their youths fuel insurgent forces. But even Shiites, who detested Saddam, have become deeply ambivalent about the continuing U.S. troop presence.

Poorer Shiites have rallied to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has fought bloody battles with U.S. troops and seeks their departure. The moderate Shiite religious establishment is chafing that elections won’t be held until next year. Should they be postponed, clerics would order their followers into the streets.

Once those elections are held, a legitimate Iraqi government will have the final say over the U.S. presence. That government will likely be dominated by religious parties. If the economy stays bad, radical Islamic parties could do well.

If Bush recognized this reality his policies on the ground would be different. He would ensure that much of U.S. reconstruction aid was diverted away from huge infrastructure projects let to big U.S. contractors.

Instead, U.S. projects would target smaller Iraqi firms and projects that create jobs for Iraqis and undercut the Islamist recruiters. Many Iraqis have advocated such a policy since the invasion, but it still hasn’t happened. A result is the growth of al-Sadr’s army.

A realistic Iraq policy would also recognize that the United States may have to draw its troops down long before any semblance of real democracy. That entails great risks — Iraq may break apart. But staying too long risks encouraging a broad Sunni-Shiite resistance that would drive Americans out.

Who wants to talk about such grim Iraq realities? Not John Kerry, who still clings to the vain hope that our NATO allies will send thousands of troops to relieve U.S. forces.

It’s harder for Kerry to lay out a detailed Iraq plan because he would have to deal with whatever Iraq mess he might inherit in January. But it would be nice to hear someone in this election talk straight about Iraq. It just hasn’t happened yet.