LAST WEEK MARKED one of the more grim milestones in the administration of President George W. Bush. On Sept. 8, the 1,000th U.S. soldier was killed in Iraq. Half of the dead hadn't reached their 30th birthday.

It's now been a year and a half since the invasion, and the casualty count shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, if anything, it's getting worse: 25 Iraqis died, and more than 200 were injured, in a series of suicide bombings Sept. 12 in and around Baghdad, which is ostensibly under U.S. control. And all Secretary of State Colin Powell can offer is his version of Richard Nixon's famous secret plan to end the Vietnam War.

Let's put it in perspective: the United States was at war in Vietnam for four years before 1,000 Americans died – and by the time the last American officials fled by helicopter from the roof of the besieged U.S. embassy, the death toll was at 58,000.

When we first called Iraq "the New Vietnam," on April 2, 2003, a lot of people thought that was a foolish, premature statement; the SF Weekly even attacked us for it, calling our headline "a howler" and our analysis "ridiculous." But unfortunately, the analogy is looking more and more accurate every day. Iraq is a mess: the U.S.-installed government has little credibility in much of the country; plans for elections are looking increasingly dubious as many of the cities in central Iraq are outside of government control; and U.S. forces are caught in an unwinnable quagmire, trapped between fighting an urban guerrilla war that can only be won with extensive civilian casualties and allowing warlords, radical clerics, and anti-American forces to take over significant parts of the country.

And so far, this has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $100 billion, with no end in sight.

Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic candidate, desperately needs to be taking this issue a lot more seriously. The country (and that includes the swing states) is turning against the war, and instead of using that fact to press Bush on the New Vietnam, Kerry is letting Bush's surrogates hit on his own record in the old Vietnam War. It's almost embarrassing to watch.

Meanwhile, the Democratic candidate has begun ducking the news media, refusing interviews, and acting like, well, Bush.

If Kerry wants to win, he has to stop waffling, quit hiding, and make it clear the invasion was wrong, the continued war is wrong, and he's going to put an end to it. He needs to offer some real solutions – although we also recognize that Bush has created a horrible situation with no easy way out. To simply withdraw now would be to abandon the residents of a country with a badly damaged infrastructure and no functioning government. To remain means more violence, more death, and more isolation of the United States from the world community. Still, the only real answer seems to be turning over control of the military forces in the region to the United Nations – and Bush, who has defied and alienated the U.N. at every turn, simply can't and won't do that. Maybe Kerry can.

We're all too aware of all the problems with Kerry. But as former state senator Tom Hayden likes to argue, this election is ultimately a referendum on the war – and if Kerry wins, it will be with a clear mandate to dramatically shift Bush's entire approach to foreign policy. It took the peace movement years to gear up and mount an effective campaign against the Vietnam War; the modern antiwar movement is already large, well-organized, and prepared to effectively pressure a Kerry administration to undo Bush's mistakes. Step one is ousting the incumbent in November.