The Second Iraq War: A note on an aside

Second update, Friday night.

Updated below, Thursday morning.

Dueling headlines courtesy of Yahoo and the AP this morning.

Gates says secure Iraq within reach

14 die in Baghdad blast as Gates visits

Note to the war hawks and anyone who wants to give the Surge the benefit of the doubt:  As ec thompson says at Where's the Outrage, the point wasn't to prove that the American military can take and secure given patches of real estate.  No one's ever doubted the Army and the Marines' ability to do that.  We didn't need the Surge to prove that. And the goal was not just to reduce American casualites.  As Atrios has noted, if that was the goal then there was an easier way to go about it---bring the troops home.

The goal was to make things peaceful enough for a political solution to the mess we created to be worked out.

Now, even if that's happening or will eventually happen, if it turns out that over the long haul, the ten to twenty years it's predicted (by optimists) we'll have to stay there to bring it about, that civil war is ended, that a secular, functioning, and truly democratic government friendly to the United States and Israel is established and survives, that peace and prosperity abound and all the lights come back on and all the schools receive their last coat of paint, all that will have been the result of the Second Iraq War, the one we've had to fight because George Bush lost the First War, the Cakewalk War he sold to the American people, the one that was supposed to be over in a matter of weeks and have ended with the beginning of the glorious, democratic Presidency of the Iraqi George Washington, Ahmed Chalabi.

If it makes you feel better you can argue that Bush won the war but lost the peace, but I don't think that really does you any good.  The peace was the point.  Or what we were told was the point. 

The point, we were told, of the war we were sold, was to end the evil reign of Saddam Hussein, find those Weapons of Mass Destruction, round up or take out the al-Qaeda terrorists who had Saddam's support and blessing, and as a result bring into existence a shiny new democratic and eternally grateful Iraq where the people lived free from fear, free from want, free from violence, torture, kidnapping, starvation, and oppressions of all kinds.

We took out Saddam, there was nothing we could do about the WMD and the terrorists because neither was there (although the latter have moved in since), and we failed, miserably, to bring about the shiny new Iraq. 

Most of you are probably wondering why I'm bothering to state the obvious.  It's because the next two posts in my apparently never-ending series on Tinfoil Hats and Tin Plated Lies will take as givens that Bush lost the first Iraq War and I don't want to have to stop in the middle of either to explain to state the obvious.  So I'm stating it here.

Bush lost his first Iraq war.

He's not doing that well with the second.

Update:  The Vagabond Scholar does a thorough job on "that pesky violence in Iraq."

Another update:  Phoenix Woman on how the insurgents are biding their time and why wouldn't they?

Comments

[Linkmeister]

There was another reason given as well: to set an example for the rest of the region. Democracy better than dictator! Of course, the subtext was "Hey, Syria and Iran: we do regime change real well, and you might be next."

[bob]

We lost this war the instant we started it. Period. Anybody who thinks differently, frankly, is a complete asshole. Period. You WERE wrong, you ARE wrong, and you always WILL BE wrong. You assholes were wrong about every single foreign policy decision since Nixon. You always will be wrong. You simply don't have the luxury of self awareness. You are just a mass of fear that you project on everyone else. End of rant.

[bob]

We lost this war the instant we started it. Period. Anybody who thinks differently, frankly, is a complete asshole. Period. You WERE wrong, you ARE wrong, and you always WILL BE wrong. You assholes were wrong about every single foreign policy decision since Nixon. You always will be wrong. You simply don't have the luxury of self awareness. You are just a mass of fear that you project on everyone else. End of rant.

[cebm]

Add in the fact that Sadr's cease fire ends in three months, then let's see what happens to the "surge success".

[BigDon]

A Short-Short Story -

All US military personnel were permanently home from the Middle East and his troubled presidency was drawing to a close.

On this evening of December 24, 2008, concluding his final televised speech to the American people, and as multi-megatons of mushroom clouds suddenly billowed over Iraq, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, a satisfied George Bush announced in those immortal words of Michael Corleone:

“Today, I settle all ‘family’ business…”