Victory in Iraq

[jimmy olsen]

I'd say it's time for Obama to declare Mission Accomplished. 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/04/15/so_what_happened_to_iraq_105186.html

So What Happened to Iraq?
By Victor Davis Hanson

Six years ago, the conventional wisdom was that Ayad Allawi, then prime minister of the appointed Iraqi Interim Government, was a puppet of the United States.

Last month, though, the Allawi-led Iraqiya alliance won, by a narrow margin, more parliamentary seats than any other coalition in national elections -- and he may become the country's next prime minister.

The secular Allawi successfully campaigned on the message of curbing religious interference in government -- countering the often-argued charge that the U.S. has created a radical Islamic republic in Iraq.

Indeed, as we look back at our years in Iraq, almost all of what once passed for conventional wisdom has been proven wrong.

Yes, there is still terrorist violence in Iraq -- especially recently as the leadership of the country's next government remains in doubt. And, yes, there are still around 130,000 American soldiers in Iraq. But in the first three months of 2010, the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq was about equal to those murdered in Fresno, Calif.

Meanwhile, Iraq's democracy has for some time now proven itself independent from the U.S. -- and that old anti-war accusations that we entered the war to control Iraqi oil were false.

Last June, the representative Iraqi government held its first oil auction -- featuring transparent negotiations in which no American oil company was awarded an oil concession.

Instead, Chinese, Russian, British, French and other national oil consortia were given the awards. These were legitimate contracts, too -- not the sweetheart deals Saddam Hussein used to make with other governments in exchange for international political cover.

After the U.S. removed the monstrous Saddam, many argued that we were only empowering neighboring Iran -- and thus that the U.S. and the region were better off when he was in power. Putting aside the morality of playing one dictatorship off against another, has theocratic Iran really benefited from the emergence of a constitutional democracy in Iraq?

Currently, the Iranian theocracy is far more unpopular among Iranians than the Iraqi democracy is among Iraqis. Ending Saddam Hussein's reign in the short-term might have been welcome to the ruling Iranian mullahs, but a nearby functioning secular constitutional state -- with a Shiite majority -- is becoming its worst nightmare. Millions of restless Iranians must now wonder, "If Iraqi Shiites can talk freely on television, why can't we?"

Given Iraq's progress these last years, it's hard to find anyone who still argues -- as the current troika now directing U.S. foreign policy, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, once did -- that President Bush's 2007 troop surge was a mistake.

To a then-Sen. Clinton, the surge's purported success required a "suspension of disbelief." But, as we now know, the surge saved Iraq and provided a blueprint of sorts for operations in Afghanistan.

Finally, there was the assertion that anti-war protests were all genuinely based on opposition to the American presence in Iraq rather than fueled, in large part, by partisan politics. But since January 2009, when Obama was sworn into office, there have been almost no anti-war demonstrations against the still-sizable American presence there. Popular demonstrations in the U.S. now oppose excessive government, not the war.

And Hollywood has ceased making its usual, unpopular anti-war movies like "In the Valley of Elah," "Redacted," "The Kingdom," "Rendition," "Lions for Lambs" and "Home of the Brave."

Many on the left no longer oppose the Bush-Petraeus plan of slow, graduated withdrawal from Iraq, as this strategy is now sanctioned by President Obama. In the words of Vice President Biden, Iraq may well become one of the Obama administration's "greatest achievements."

It's true that many original supporters of the three-week removal of Saddam Hussein underestimated the ordeal of establishing a constitutional state in his absence. But it's also evident that many who damned the war did so mainly to embarrass then-President George Bush.

We see all of this mostly in hindsight. Dire assertions about Iraq did not come to pass. Anti-war passion cooled once war-critic Barack Obama was no longer a presidential candidate but became president -- and commander-in-chief. And, most importantly, a successful democracy finally did arise after the fall of Saddam.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing [email protected].

Copyright 2010, Tribune Media Services Inc.

[Jaron]

This is fucking INCREDIBLE. Its amazing what gets done when Democrats take power.

[Razgovory]

Oh my.  That a beautiful rewrite.  I thought this guy was thrown in prison for spying for the Russians.

[jimmy olsen]

I thought this guy was thrown in prison for spying for the Russians.

I think you're thinking of someone else.

[Eddie Teach]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen

[Jaron]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanson_%28band%29

[Viking]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson

I looked about for a photo shopped picture of Obama's head on the "W" with the Mission Accomplished banner but couldn't find one.

Edit: Obviously I didn't look very hard...

[grumbler]

It is ironic that the only people who fought the McCain surge plan harder than Democrats like Clinton were Republicans like Cheney, but since the surge worked Bush's people are now re-writing history to make the surge into Bush's plan.

How many other tragedies could have been avoided if McCain had won in 2000? 

[Agelastus]

Victor Davis Hanson is the man who seems to consider Alexander III of Macedon the greatest mass murderer in history, and liberally sprinkles books he writes on the period with this assertion.

This always gives me pause when I come to read anything else he has written, as I cannot decide what is considered judgment and what is personal prejudice when it comes to him.

And it appears from the comments of our American Brethren that McCain's reward for winning in Iraq was to be rejected by the electorate in favour of Obama. How Churchillian of him...

[Eddie Teach]

I don't know that figuring "we need more troops" is quite sufficient display of perspicacity to be rewarded with the Presidency.

[DontSayBanana]

It's hard to understand a guy who's trying to talk with his mouth full of elephant cock.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't know that figuring "we need more troops" is quite sufficient display of perspicacity to be rewarded with the Presidency.

Would you say that not figuring we need more troops disqualifies one for the presidency?

[Eddie Teach]

Not if one is opposed to the war in the first place.

[Josquius]

Finally, there was the assertion that anti-war protests were all genuinely based on opposition to the American presence in Iraq rather than fueled, in large part, by partisan politics. But since January 2009, when Obama was sworn into office, there have been almost no anti-war demonstrations against the still-sizable American presence there. Popular demonstrations in the U.S. now oppose excessive government, not the war.

This bit I'd disagree with, it reads like typical whiny right wing 'damn pinkos' stuff.
He says people protested the war under Bush just because they were democrats- but then in the rest of the article he says the Iraq war is being won, not many soldiers die there, democracy is forming and all is good.
He doesn't think that maybe this might be the reason anti-war protests have dropped off?
Not to mention the fact that all but the most ignorant should have realised to suddenly 'stop the war' would be silly.
There probally was a degree of general anti-Bushness in the protests but thats not all it was.

Generally though I'd agree Iraq seems to be working out well.
It is sort of odd that the uncontroversial Afghanistan war is being such a disaster but the dubious Iraq war seems to be working out. Somewhat expected given the two countries but still. Funny.

[Eddie Teach]

Generally though I'd agree Iraq seems to be working out well.
It is sort of odd that the uncontroversial Afghanistan war is being such a disaster but the dubious Iraq war seems to be working out. Somewhat expected given the two countries but still. Funny.

Iraq- 4700 Coalition deaths
Afghanistan- 1700 deaths

http://www.icasualties.org/