FRANKLY, I'M GLAD most Americans aren't paying attention to the presidential race yet.

That's because most of the candidates are offering simplistic solutions to the biggest issue—the War in Iraq.

On one side are the Democrats, a few Republicans up for re-election, and what appears to be a slight but growing majority of Americans. They say this: "Why are we policing the Iraqis' civil war and losing our young men and women?"

The other side is made up of the Bush Administration and most Republicans who say, "We can't cut and run and cause a regional war that could cripple ours and the world's economy."

Those are two true statements. But neither statement tells the whole truth. In fact, they're merely political slogans to rally their core constituencies. They don't talk to the American people honestly.

To whip up the political rhetoric further, both sides either embrace or reject the comparison to Vietnam. On many levels, Iraq resembles Vietnam. But I think there's a better analogy—Afghanistan.

I'm not talking about Afghanistan today or even the months after 9/11. I'm referring to Afghanistan at the end of the Cold War.

Remember back to the early 1990s when Russia pulled out ending its attempted occupation of Afghanistan. American dollars withdrew, too. We abandoned people who relied on us for their livelihood which, at that time, was fighting a small, penultimate chapter of the Cold War. Read the book Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times—soon to be a film—that shows how we turned nomad fighters into modern day guerillas.

Once the Cold War ended, the warrior mentality in Afghanistan was left like germs in a wet, warm Petri dish with billions of armaments and a generation's worth of hate and guerilla training festering and ready to spread, first with the Taliban conquering Afghanistan, then helping al Qaeda train fighters in Bosnia, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and finally the United States.

I'm not saying 9/11 would have been avoided if we had deployed a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan in 1991. Muslim extremism had its roots seventy years before the Twin Towers attacks and the Russian pull-out of Afghanistan. Read one of the best books on the reasons for 9/11, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

And I'm not saying revisiting our errors in Afghanistan will end or solve the Iraq problem. However, it might help us understand what will happen next in Iraq.

Let's face it. No matter who wins the White House in 2008, that leader will not enact a massive U.S. troop withdrawal. He or she can't. The first American rule in the Middle East is this: It's all about the oil. Here's where Mr. Bush is right. A regional conflict would reduce oil production, sending prices even higher, leading to a worldwide recession.

Sure you can blame President Bush. But he's not alone. All presidents since Richard Nixon—minus Jimmy Carter—until the current office holder have put us into a position that no amount of corn or sugar gas can solve over the next ten years. As we fed the ungrateful beasts in Afghanistan in the 1990s, we, too, fed for a far longer time the conscience-less corporate oil and auto industries that turned on us also. No matter how you try to yell liberal slogans at someone, this is the truth: We're stuck in Iraq thanks to a 1950s energy policy paid for by corporate campaign donations. While that's the past, it is also still the reality for the foreseeable future.

Furthermore, pulling out of Iraq would make the new president look like the boy with the last finger in the dike trying to decide if he can outrun the flood. Yes, eventually the warring sides would find a winner and there would be relative calm. But when? The Iran-Iraq War went on for eight years. And chances are the victor of the current conflict would run a ruthless totalitarian government similar to what we're seeing in Russia, Iran, and Venezuela that will commandeer and control Iraq's oil. The eventual winner would most likely be a nuclear Iran. Explain that to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Israel. Talk about being on edge.

Some of our military and political leaders know this. I also think the public is sensing it as well—despite the clarity from our political candidates. The first sign of this awareness is the wavering September deadline on the progress report of the surge. Patraeus has become Godot. We'll never have a definitive report. The reporting deadline creates a new reality on the ground in Iraq. Certainly, the terrorists are watching American politics closely and adjusting. However, the elected officials of Iraq are watching the scene in D.C., too, but they're incapable of moving forward. Iraq is not a football game between two teams; it's a fluid situation with many players and no scorecard or ref.

Certainly, as Democrats are demanding, we need to reduce our boots on the ground in Iraq. Despite the efforts and successes of our military in various areas of Iraq, we're also provoking more problems. Here's where President Bush is wrong. He continually says we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here. First, that is another unthinking statement in the vein of "Good job, Brownie." If you're an Iraqi, do you want to hear that? Secondly, terrorists or sleeper cells in America are easily recruited with our presence there. Although they hate us, they want to win glory from Allah in their homeland more. It might not matter now, though, since we've helped bin Laden increase his followers worldwide. And furthermore, wouldn't we rather have our troops home protecting us here? Sure, if the oil wasn't so precious.

In addition, we're in way too deep financially while we neglect the looming fiscal disasters of Social Security, Medicare and health insurance at home. Not to mention, a generation of military personnel that is either damaged or disillusioned.

However, our next president may also have an advantage—thanks to President Bush. All Americans should hope and pray that Mr. Bush goes back to his thinking and pompous rhetoric from 2003. In fact, he should ratchet it up and really anger every world leader. That way when the next president is elected—either Democrat, Republican, or Independent (am I making a statement here?)—he or she will be able to divorce themselves from the Bush policies completely and start anew. That new beginning will offer the new president a chance to whole heartedly reject the policies of Mr. Bush and make things right with the rest of the world (yes, mea culpas) and hopefully bring them on board to help rebuild Iraq and the Middle East. If you think about it, the real problem for most Americans is that we're nearly alone in Iraq.

So, for the next year listen to the candidates talk about Iraq. But remember, most of them are speaking to a small core of supporters right now. Frankly, the only two candidates who have a nuanced and complex but sensible view of Iraq are Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Ironically, they are, in my estimation, the only candidates running for president. All the others are merely running for their parties' nominations.

Let's see who brings up 1990s Afghanistan first.