Roughly three and a half years after Pearl Harbor, our nation celebrated V-E Day. Three and a half years after invading Iraq, and five years after the World Trade Center collapse we can celebrate no victory.

Sept. 11 marked a stroke of incredible luck for some who hate us but had been powerless to harm us. We took their best shot and recovered. As the recently thwarted plot in Britain demonstrates, this is a problem for intelligence and law enforcement.

We are creating our own problems by paying obscene amounts of money for oil to people who hate us. It is difficult to conceive of a worse response to oil-fueled terror than tax breaks for massive SUVs, but that is exactly what your government did. Our addiction to oil is a grave national security issue that deserves a rational response.

Conflating 9/11 and the war in Iraq was never a good strategy and served only to confuse the president’s political enemies. The Rumsfeld Pentagon acts as if Vietnam taught us “Inconvenience the public as little as possible” and not “Win the war you are fighting.” Our president has proven unable to back his words with action. There is no “Trust, but verify” or “Walk softly, but carry a big stick,” only the ability to talk tough and hope no one notices the difference. Unfortunately, every IED planted by an Iraqi roadside demonstrates that some have indeed drawn the distinction.

No one doubts that our happy few bands of brothers are heroic, but the country would be better off if President Bush realized Shakespeare is literature, not military theory. We have never had enough forces in Iraq and until that mistake is fixed, nothing will improve. Two million Americans on the ground would pacify the country in months. If this requires a draft to drastically increase troop levels, then the president and Congress will be reaping the whirlwind of their poor decisions to date, such as invading Iraq in the first place.

In earlier wars, every American sacrificed through higher taxes. Think of how many “Freedom Bonds” could have been sold in the wake of 9/11 or after the fall of Saddam. Instead, Congress cut taxes repeatedly for the wealthiest among us, and is relentlessly intent on cutting more. During a war, how can anyone complain about an estate tax for millionaires that helps pay for the efforts of soldiers who are dying every day?

It does not take a crystal ball to foresee the unpleasant consequences of staying the course to failure, or hastening it by withdrawing and leaving a nonfunctional government to stand alone. A nuclear Iran menacing Israel, Iraq wracked by civil war and $100 barrels of oil will be the immediate dividends of quitting this fight. Today, we are only dealing with one of the three, and still have it in our power to change course. Five years from now, we will not, and we will all rue our choices.