The flags have been lowered and the bugles have sounded. The last of the combat troops are leaving. And so the war in Iraq is finally over.

Purists will say "not yet," as there are still troops in Iraq, at least 200 or so to protect the huge U.S. embassy. Nevertheless, the war in the desert is finally over.

Was it worth it?

I think it's too early to make a definitive judgment, although public opinion polls indicate the American people don't think so. Saddam Hussein, the worst of the Middle East dictators, is gone. That, at least, is a good thing. And perhaps the protracted and agonizing war awakened Arab public opinion to the point that it helped to sow the seeds of revolt against Arab dictators. That's putting the best face on it.

But at the cost of more than 100,000 Iraqi civilian dead, as well some 4,500 Americans and a bitterly, corrosively divided American public? At best, the war was ill-considered, and it is not at all certain that the Iraqis are grateful.

Indeed, there is a lot of evidence, as witnessed by debates in the Iraqi parliament and in Iraqi public opinion polls, to suggest that the Iraqis are not. I doubt if we will be missed.

Iraq has been, at best, an unhappy affair. For those of an uncertain mind, we may remind ourselves of Mark Twain's opinion that while war is always a bad thing, it may not always be the worst thing. But when it comes to Iraq, that is a highly contentious view.

President George W. Bush made the agreement to get out of Iraq, and President Barack Obama carried out that agreement. It is one of Obama's signature foreign policy achievements. But if we are to listen to the Republican presidential candidates, then the withdrawal from Iraq is a mistake that dangerously weakens the position of the U.S. in the Middle East, sending the wrong signal to Iran, which the same candidates identify as our principal adversary. They seem to have forgotten the advice of such stalwart military figures as Lt. Gen Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to the first President Bush, and Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, or "Stormin' Norman," commander of U.S. forces during the first Gulf War. They were strongly opposed to invading Iraq in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein.

To liberate Kuwait from the Iraqis during the Gulf War, Schwarzkopf masterminded the single largest military operation since the end of World War II. But both he and Scowcroft advised against the second war. Alas, they seem to cut no ice with the current crop of candidates.

The Republican Party seems to have lost its grip on reality, perhaps even its sanity. To quote Tom Friedman in the New York Times, the Republicans have gone nuts.

Michele Bachmann says Israel is "our greatest ally," and not to support that ally will bring about the fall of the U.S. To be sure, her views are rooted in her religious fundamentalism, views she hopes will resonate with conservative fundamentalist Christians, and thus gain her the nomination. But those views will not help Israel if she cannot tell truth to Israeli power. Just ask Obama. Bachmann singing hymns in church on Sunday may strengthen her faith, but unless her witless and dangerously uninformed views are grounded in the complex realities of the Middle East, they will do little or nothing to further the cause of peace.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will roll over her like a steamroller, and she will never know what happened.

Both Gov. Rick Perry and former Gov. Mitt Romney think Obama has thrown Israel under a bus.

Oh, really?

The Israelis don't seem to think so, though it is clear Netanyahu and Obama do not like each other. The pandering to Israeli supporters — and thus their votes — at the risk of destroying our carefully constructed relations with the Palestinians is appalling.

American Jewish voters are not stupid. Nor are the Israelis. They know exactly what this unseemly pandering is all about.

The latest example is that of Newt Gingrich, allegedly a historian, telling a Jewish audience that the Palestinians are "an invented people" because there never was an independent Palestine. The Palestinians, according to Gingrich, are just Arabs who could have left Palestine when the leaving was good, before the creation of Israel in 1948.

Even Netanyahu and the Israeli right wing don't go that far.

The Syrians, Iraqis and Jordanians are also Arabs, but does that mean the Syrians, Iraqis and Jordanians are invented peoples? The French and the Germans are also Europeans, but they are still French and German. His ignorance and arrogance were stunning. Is this all the Republicans have to offer?

William M. Stewart, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and Time magazine correspondent, lives in Santa Fe.