Coaltion of the Increasingly Less Willing

President Bush says American troops will stay in Iraq “until the job is complete” and there will be no “graceful exit.”

His certitude is apparently not infectious. Fifteen members of the “Coalition of the Willing,” including Spain, Norway and the Netherlands, have made their exits in the past three years. Japan, Italy and Poland are on their way out, and even the British are cutting back.

Before long, the White House’s bunker mentality, which, according to polls, is increasingly distancing the Administration from the American people, will be global.

If Bush prevails and we are the last to leave, at least we won’t have to remember to turn off the lights. In Baghdad these days, the power is on for only seven hours a day.