What's required? It's obvious we need more troops in Iraq. Since the administration played down the cost of the occupation before hostilities started, that may be hard to sell to the American people now. As we don't want to bear the whole burden of this enterprise ourselves, we desperately need much more help from allies. We'll soon learn how much crow the administration is willing to eat to make that happen.

And we need to spend a lot more money to put Iraqis to work, to fix Iraq's oil facilities and to repair its electric power system. Will the administration and its neoconservative allies ever admit that their big government policies abroad are inconsistent with their tax cuts for the rich at home?

Now that we have invaded Iraq, we cannot afford to let the place go to pieces. The administration can hold fast to its arrogance. Or it can acknowledge its mistakes and chart a new course.