In Iraq, no end in sight. People like me, against it from the start, are confused. Which way peace? We want to leave, but will leaving make things worse, even cause a genocide? There are good people there who have trusted us to sort this out before we go. It's unclear what decency requires.

It reminds me of something that happened years ago, when I moved from Texas to Syracuse to start grad school. I arrived with $50 to my name, having forgotten about that little detail called the "security deposit". For a week I slept in my truck. Then I got lucky: an apartment for rent needed its porch painted. I volunteered to do this, in lieu of the security deposit, and the manager - a nice guy, about my age - agreed.

When I was done, to celebrate our mutually beneficial burst of creativity, we went for a drink. I was, to say the least, surprised when, after half a beer, he got crazily belligerent. At first I thought he was kidding; doing a bad imitation of an enraged, sloppy drunk. But it got worse: he insulted women, slammed down his glass, hurled ashtrays, laughed like a crazy person, head thrown back.

I'd never seen anyone so drunk on so little. Soon he was swinging chairs, shoving men, interposing himself into dancing couples. He'd point out a woman and suggest we grope her. He'd reel into a crowd, emerge holding someone else's drink high over his head. Finally the bouncer - huge, tattooed, angry - told me I'd better get my friend out of there or he was going to hurt him.

I explained that he wasn't really my "friend", per se, just someone I'd, uh, recently met - I was from Texas, see, and didn't have... had forgotten to bring... it was a funny story, actually... had forgotten to bring a security deposit... The bouncer stabbed his finger into my chest, as if I, too, was an obnoxious, lightweight drunk: I had come in with that freak and had better get that freak out of here, or we'd both be on the floor, bleeding from the mouths, no kidding.

My "friend" refused to leave.

A tricky moral moment (!). Should I stay or should I go?

I was against Iraq from the start, never wanted a thing to do with it - and yet, thanks to Mr Bush and his merry band of neocons, there I am, there my country is, there my countrymen and women are, there our national integrity.

What I did re my drunken friend was: I invented a far wilder club we had to go to, tricked him out of his car keys, drove him home. At his place, I pocketed his keys and raced off on foot as he shouted after me in wasted outrage. Next day, I mailed him his keys, end of story.

Here, sadly, my metaphor breaks down.