What Does Bush Mean by "Victory in Iraq"?
His grandiose definition makes defeat almost inevitable.
By Fred Kaplan
Slate.com
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008
As the toll of Americans killed in Iraq topped 4,000 this week, President Bush publicly vowed "to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain"—that the war's outcome "will merit the sacrifice" and that "our strategy going forward" will be to "achieve victory."
We all wish that this were so. But what does he mean by "victory"?
The definition has evolved, or devolved, in the five years that this war has been raging. Originally, victory was conceived in grandiose terms. The defeat of Saddam Hussein's army and the toppling of his regime would spawn a new democratic Iraq, the example of which would ignite the flames of freedom across the Middle East.
Bush scaled back the standard in a November 2005 speech at the U.S. Naval Academy titled "A Strategy for Victory." This victory will come, he said, "when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe-haven for terrorists to plot new attacks on our nation."
In January 2007, the National Security Council formalized the concept in a document titled "The Iraq Strategy Review," which stated that the "strategic goal" was "a unified democratic federal Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself, and sustain itself, and is an ally in the War on Terror."
Bush and others have heralded much progress in the past year, as the troop surge went into effect and as Gen. David Petraeus devised new tactics based on counterinsurgency principles. Casualties have gone down, in some areas dramatically. The Iraqi army and police have grown in size.
(Continued here.)
By Fred Kaplan
Slate.com
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008
As the toll of Americans killed in Iraq topped 4,000 this week, President Bush publicly vowed "to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain"—that the war's outcome "will merit the sacrifice" and that "our strategy going forward" will be to "achieve victory."
We all wish that this were so. But what does he mean by "victory"?
The definition has evolved, or devolved, in the five years that this war has been raging. Originally, victory was conceived in grandiose terms. The defeat of Saddam Hussein's army and the toppling of his regime would spawn a new democratic Iraq, the example of which would ignite the flames of freedom across the Middle East.
Bush scaled back the standard in a November 2005 speech at the U.S. Naval Academy titled "A Strategy for Victory." This victory will come, he said, "when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe-haven for terrorists to plot new attacks on our nation."
In January 2007, the National Security Council formalized the concept in a document titled "The Iraq Strategy Review," which stated that the "strategic goal" was "a unified democratic federal Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself, and sustain itself, and is an ally in the War on Terror."
Bush and others have heralded much progress in the past year, as the troop surge went into effect and as Gen. David Petraeus devised new tactics based on counterinsurgency principles. Casualties have gone down, in some areas dramatically. The Iraqi army and police have grown in size.
(Continued here.)
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1 Comments:
You may have missed this article in The Washington Post : Fallujah’ police chief Col. Faisal Ismail al-Zobaie can best be described as a strongman that would make Saddam seem like a pansy. I suspect that torture is his middle name.
What Zobaie wants is for the U.S. military to hand over full control of Fallujah. He believes Iraq's current leaders are not strong enough. Asked whether democracy could ever bloom here, he replied: "No democracy in Iraq. Ever."
"When the Americans leave the city," he said, "I'll be tougher with the people."
So is it time to realize that “Victory in Iraq” will not include Democracy ?
And what will happen in Iraq when the Americans stop paying the Fallujah police chief and the rest of the Sons of Iraq ?
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