The narrative on Iraq - the one you see in the media, that is - is changing. Claims that "we've lost" and that American soldiers have been beaten by opponents who are righteous heroes or nine-foot tall and bullet proof are being quite subtly shifted to arguments that no potential victory (if even grudgingly acknowledged) could be worth the price. This argument may prove irresistible to those who've invested heavily in defeat.
Yes, and victory in World War II could have looked pretty hollow if we hadn't helped push over the Berlin Wall in 1989 and if the Soviet Union itself hadn't collapsed in 1991. Until then, it could have been really easy to argue that our sacrifices from 19451 to 1945 only put the Soviet Union in control of Eastern Europe and created a tougher foe than Nazi Germany.
And what of our slaughter that we endured in the Civil War? After the failure of Reconstruction and the cruelty od Segregation, did those hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers really achieve any lasting good freeing our slaves? It took the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s to fully cement the legal rights of African Americans.
And ecen our draw in the Korean War might look hollow despite the prosperity of South Korea should Pyongyang's Pillsbury Nuke Boy nuke Seoul. But if North Korea falls, the sacrifice of fifty years ago will look like a good price to have paid.
I don't think we will have to wait fifty or one hundred years to see the value of defeating Saddam's regime and planting democracy in Iraq. But that doesn't mean that those who think we deserve to lose won't shift their arguments to say nothing we achieve is worth the price we are paying.
Not that they'll argue we should give the place back to the Baathists. The anti-war side isn't that stupid. But they'll want to imply that it would have been better to leave them in charge rather than invade.
