But delusions of the war's architects aside, that day was never going to arrive.

• SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN: Reopen talks to keep U.S. force in Iraq

Since the initial "mission accomplished" euphoria melted into civil war, the question has not been how to achieve victory in the conventional sense but rather how quickly the U.S. could withdraw while still putting Iraq on a path to a stable democracy.

 

Now the answer is in: eight years, nine months and a few days — more than twice the length of U.S. involvement in World War II.

That is how long the Iraq War will have run when the last U.S. soldier leaves less than 10 weeks from now at President Obama's order, precisely on the timetable negotiated with the Iraqis by President Bush.

Bush has second-guessed himself since leaving office, saying he should have allowed more time for training Iraqi troops, building up Iraqi institutions and maintaining civil order. Obama, who promised early in his campaign to remove all combat troops with 16 months of taking office, also sought more time.

His administration aggressively pressed the Iraqis for months to invite a longer American stay. But with the U.S. troop presence widely unpopular, and key Iraqi factions unwilling to formally guarantee U.S. servicemembers immunity from prosecutions, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declined. So the American involvement will end.

In confirming the year-end schedule last week, Obama put too shiny a face on a very uncertain situation, but as messy as the ending might be, other options were worse.

One strategy that the administration weighed last summer was to leave a tiny residual force, perhaps as few as 3,000 troops — not enough to secure the country, just enough to make a tempting and vulnerable target.

Another would be to stay on uninvited. With a majority of Iraqis already seeing the United States as an occupier not a liberator, that would have been a bonanza for the Iranians and Islamist radicals alike.

That option was not seriously considered, but Republican presidential aspirants, positioning themselves to criticize Obama for any problems that appear in the next year, seemed to edge very close to it. They called Obama's announcement a diplomatic failure that will leave Iraq vulnerable to Iranian aggression. Never mind that the Iraqi public and large factions of the government no longer want U.S. troops present. Meddling where you're not wanted isn't usually a formula for success.

Nor is a blame-Obama strategy likely to sell very well. Bush launched the war (with considerable Democratic support). It fell apart on his watch, and he very personally directed the complex surge strategy that rescued the war effort from disaster. He negotiated the war timetable, which Obama carried out. And the truth is that even if U.S. troops stayed two more years, similar doubts would be raised.

In fact, the most important lesson to draw from the war is not about how it is ending but about how it began — with the disastrously mistaken belief, propagated by then-Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, that the United States could advance its interests by intervening militarily in the Middle East. Instead, that hubris bred hostility among Muslims and appears likely to make Iran the big winner in Iraq.

More time would not alter those truths. Ready or not, after nearly nine years of war, with the Iraqis' welcome mat withdrawn, it's time for the troops to come home.