As any military man worth his salt will tell you, one can either win with overwhelming authority . . . or lose.  By trying to score political points and do the war on the cheap, Rumsfeld effectively lost the peace.  That's not to say Iraq won't turn out to be a better place 20 years from now, but I fear the worst.  As I said before, it's largely in the Iraqi's hands now, and quite frankly I don't think they are up to the task of policing themselves.