Five years ago, when the announcement of the bombing of Baghdad was made, my husband, my two daughters and I were in a garden center in Virginia deciding which flowers to plant in the garden of the home we had purchased and moved into in the fall. Our lives seemed to be on an upward swing. We were hopeful. And for me, even the war seemed, at least initially, that it might accomplish something positive. I had, after all, lived in Israel during the first Gulf War and knew some of the dangers of Saddam’s administration. At the time I had been pregnant with my older daughter. (My mother had given me the book, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, but there was nothing in there about breathing exercises to stay calm in the face of air raid sirens and bombs bursting in air.)

But, in the five years that have transpired, things have not gone as planned—or hoped--either on the home front or the war front. I have gotten divorced in what has won me the “worst divorce story” among friends, and lawyers have claimed that my ex is the “worst” they have dealt with. And Iraq, surely a continual worst case scenario if ever there was one. Iraq’s devastation lays bare the need for a new word that can intimate the chaos, destruction, and failings of the war—of war itself, perhaps.

My mother keeps telling me that there is a light at the end of the tunnel of my life, but I keep telling her that the boulder stuck in the middle needs to move. Is there a light for Iraq? How have all of the vows and intentions failed so completely? How have we created a failed state?

My marriage ended when I finally realized that nothing I can do will change the man I had married into an empathetic and compassionate person instead of the controlling and abusive beast he had become. So, too, must we step out of the beast which Iraq has become (which we have made).

American service members and Iraqi civilians, alike, need to know that there is, indeed, a light at the end of the tunnel—so let’s work on moving the boulder out of the way by getting out of Iraq!