Just today, I sent an email to a conservative friend, saying;
You're a military man. We had victory in WWII in Germany and in Japan. An enemy leader was defeated and surrendered. The idiot in the white house killed the guy who could have surrendered. How do you have victory in a guerilla insurrection? What does victory look like?
People putting flowers in their IEDs?
So, finally, Bush admitted in his unconvincing reading of his latest speechwriter's robo-speech,
The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will.
Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship. But victory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab world ï ¿ ½" a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties and answers to its people. A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them ï ¿ ½" and it will help bring a future of peace and security for our children and grandchildren.
Unfortunately, the plans Bush described offer just about zero likelihood that his vision of victory will be achieved.
It looks like Bush has decided to hand Iraq over to the majority Shia population there. We know what Shias do when they get their hands on democracy-- turn it into theocracy. Bush's fantasy of victory is not going to ever happen-- at least not without the continued presence of an escalated US military presence.
We've seen that the Iran funded and inspired Shia movements around the world are regressive cultures, aiming to take down democracy, install rigid, paternalistic, mysoginist autocracies that nurture and support terrorists, like we've seen the Taliban do in Afghanistan and Hizbollah do in Lebanon.
At the end of world war two, there were clear cut nations that could surrender.
There are no people to surrender. The Democracy Bush seeks is not going to suddenly pop up out of the dessert, or appear in the green zone of Baghdad. It will not appear when an additional 20,000 troops appear in Iraq. Ironically, you can't see democracy when a military police state is operating.
History will look back to see that Bush took a delicately balanced middle east, where Shia and Sunni states were, though fighting, keeping about even, and he destroyed that balance, opening up the opportunity for the Shia to gain power-- power that lead to advancing, aggressive theocratic armies aimed at grabbing territory and nations and subjecting them to domination by religious extremists.
History will characterize Bush as a liar who ham-handedly, with the help of his hyper-macho, power hungry, former jock Vice president, fudged the intelligence, defrauding Americans and the UN with the help of a Secretary of state front man, Colin Powell, sold his integrity and his country to be a part of the "team."
The term "Bush victory" may enter the lexicon as a way to describe an effort stupidly begun, unplanned and in which the leadership continue beyond any hope of success, to pursue "victory." A Bush victory will be used to describe a miserable failure-- digging a deeper hole, throwing good money after bad, putting salt in a wound...
Of course the other kind of victory, named after Pyrrhus-- the Pyrrhic victory-- describes a victory won at such a great cost that it leads to ultimate defeat and loss.
When Bush went into Iraq with his shock and awe, by taking down the greatest opponent to the spread of Shia theocracy, by destroying the baathist army, he injected such a massive increase of instability, everything changed. He basically won the battle and, in doing so, set into motion the processes that have lost him the war.
There is no potential for victory in Iraq-- none. The best we can hope for is to palliate the descent into deeper chaos that will occur when the US withdraws from Iraq, which it must surely do. This descent will be dangerous for some of the neighboring countries. They should be getting into Iraq now. But, because that would be seen as enabling the hated Americans, it probably won't happen. The US should be negotiating with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey now. Because they will surely be forced to step in once the people of the US get control of the crazinessonf Bush and themilitary.
