The compromise of Congress and their failure to come up with any alternative way forward in Iraq represents an unfortunate lack of imagination. It's as if the only possible answers are withdrawal timetable or no timetable, benchmarks or no benchmarks.

We have seen over and over that military might will not resolve the conflict. But certainly it would be irresponsible to simply abandon the mess that we created. Imagine a "surge" of mediators and conflict resolution specialists. What if we helped thousands of Arabs hone their own culturally appropriate conflict resolution techniques. What if we promoted a culture of peace instead of a culture of militarism.