I am concerned about a culture that has been seduced by war. I am concerned about a culture that salivates over the raw power of military hardware but shows little sustained interest in the military virtues of courage, loyalty, honor, fidelity and justice. I am concerned that our civilian leaders on both sides of the aisle seem to have forgotten what many of our great generals and admirals, including George Washington, Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower, always knew: that it is not America's military power that makes us great. It is our greatness that makes us powerful.

What makes us a great country is not that we can go anywhere in the world and kill anyone we want. Well, anyone we can find. What makes us great is that we work hard, we tolerate differences, we have room for faith and science. We are great because in the end we know that a healthy, prosperous and happy society not only endures, but needs, diverse opinions, cultures, life styles, fashions and beliefs. No amount of terrorism can take this away from us. We can only take it away from ourselves.

What was supposed to be the elixir that would cure the national malaise following the turmoil of the '60s and restore our faith in American power has turned out to be, perhaps, an even more difficult circumstance to reconcile. Iraq was a broken and depleted country in 2003, having already lost one war to the United States, having been subject to crippling sanctions from the United Nations and having fought to a draw with Iran after a devastating war that lasted 10 years. At the same time the United States stood alone as the most preponderant military power.

No one disputes the fact that in 2003 the United States possessed the best-trained, best-equipped and probably the best-motivated fighting force the world has ever known. We were spending more for military preparedness than the rest of the world combined. And in this case, we cannot blame foot-dragging politicians, "traitorous" movie stars or unwashed, long-haired hippies for what has happened. And yet, here we are, wondering where we are, wondering how we got here, wondering if we can find the way forward, wondering if there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

In his long-awaited testimony nearly two months ago, Gen. David Petraeus warned us that we must not "rush to defeat" in Iraq. A more cynical reading of the general's words might lead us to think that he was suggesting a more slow and measured pace to defeat.

Whatever the outcome, we can be certain that some will call it "victory" and some will call it "defeat." It will not be a defeat for the men and women that we sent there. We asked them to find weapons of mass destruction. They didn't find any. They did their job. We asked them to capture a dangerous tyrant. They did. We asked them to set up and supervise a process of fair elections and then protect the government that resulted. They did.

What has been defeated is the idea that we can reshape the world to our liking with military hardware. What has been defeated is the naive assumption that there are no limits to the use of force. What has been defeated is the notion that war, a tool of destruction, can be used to construct a nation. We expected more from the use of force than the use of force could deliver. That is why we are desperately looking for a "way forward."

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I visited Ground Zero not long after the 9/11 attacks. It was a moving pilgrimage. I have never been so proud of my country: proud of the self-sacrificing heroism of the first responders, proud of the way the world's greatest city absorbed a terrifying attack, proud of how a country rallied around its injured metropolis.

The plywood ramps built to make the site accessible were bordered by plywood walls that ranged from 4- to 10-feet-high. I spent more than an hour reading the messages tacked to the walls or written on them. From around the country and around the world there were poems, love notes, bits of wisdom, condolences. I read hundreds and only found one that was filled with hate and a call for revenge.

That message was hard to read because it had been scratched through with many pencils, ballpoint pens and sharp objects. And I thought to myself -- that is my country. That is the country that I love for its greatness.

Although there has been and will be plenty of blame to go around as we try to understand what happened after those moments of international unity and courage, in the end I believe that we must shoulder the responsibility as a nation and as a culture. We would do well to rethink our fascination with force and rededicate ourselves to the compassion and openness that are the ultimate sources of our greatness. If we must speak of defeat, let it be for an idea that one can force the world, or even a small poor part of the world, into one's idea of what it should be.