"We are winning" isn't the same as "we have won." But it' a cruel blow to those who've had a lot invested in the notion that we've lost, something that's even been noted on the left. If things continue to play out as they are, Iraq will be stable, and its people will remain deeply unhappy with Al Qaeda, and those -- in Iran and Saudi Arabia -- who have backed its violence and the effort to keep Iraq chaotic and deadly. It'll be for the next President to take proper advantage of that, if he or she is smart enough to.The cost of the war is heading toward a trillion or higher, and has made Iraq a basket-case state similar to the other new and violently achieved "democracies" of our age which are showing very few of the sort of resources that got America up on its feet after its own revolution. Except, of course, Iraq's political realignment was not at all internally generated. Somebody suffered a "cruel blow," alright.
As previously observed here, even the cheerleaders are not pretending to maintain their old interest in promoting democracy in Iraq anymore. So they, and we, are left with what is called victory now: a relatively quiet occupation. Reduced American casualties are wonderful, of course, but bound to be temporary, as the invasion of Iran is imminent. Thence will come new expenses of blood and treasure, more strewn rose-petals and toppled statues, another lengthy insurgency which nobody could have predicted, another surge, another round of chest-thumps, and, ultimately, another invasion of someplace else.
The American people are sick of this shit, but who cares what they think? They don't know the cost of admitting error. For the Perfesser it might mean the loss of some advertising; for the Republicans, even more ignominious defeat; for Hillary Clinton, a critical loss of stature and high seriousness against her antiwar opponents.
If they're not concerned with democracy anywhere else, why should they stick their necks out for it here?
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