But among the various official statements being issued to explain events in Iraq, any mention of military victory has become notable by its absence. Tacitly -- unnoticed even by the war's critics -- the Bush administration has all but given up any expectation of defeating the enemy with whom we are engaged.
Given up on victory? Man, the good professor has been overdosing on Chai tea or something. I'm sure that as the last Baathist is arrested by an Iraqi intelligence officer and the last jihadi killed by a US-trained Iraqi trooper, with the rest of the less committed insurgents throwing away their gear and getting a job, they'll console themselves, "Well at least the US didn't beat us!"
I'm tempted to speculate that if we did not have a couple hundred thousand Iraqis in uniform at our side, the professor would complain that we had Americanized the war. That would be unfair, I suppose, since I don't know this author's record (and I don't feel like looking it up). Let me just stay with what he says. We have not given up on beating the enemy. The enemy needs to be beaten and it will best be beaten with Iraqi forces and with reconstruction that isolates the enemy and deprives them of any aura of resistance to a foreign enemy. We are successfully doing that. Why victory has to be defined as killing all the enemy let alone why such a strange definition of victory must be accomplished by US troops, is beyond me. This is not a conventional war. We are working for the hearts and minds of the Iraqis. We have the Kurds, we have the Shias after their uncertainty based on our betrayal in 1991 and after snuffing out the Sadr revolt, and after the election, it looks like the Sunnis are coming around slowly. They know we are winning even if the professor does not.
And what am I to make of this?
Of course, following the heady assault on Baghdad, the conflict took an unexpected turn -- precisely as wars throughout history have tended to do. As a consequence, today a low-tech enemy force estimated at about 10,000 fighters has stymied the mightiest military establishment the world has ever seen. To be sure, the adversary cannot defeat us militarily. But neither can we defeat it. In short, U.S. troops today are no longer fighting to win, but simply to buy time: This has become the Bush administration's substitute for victory. Worse, in a war such as in Iraq, time is more likely to work in the other guy's favor.
Wow. Again, ease off on the tea, professor. While the war is not won, it seems very clear to me that we are winning. Far from us being stymied, the enemy is stymied: elections were held, rebuilding continues, Iraqi governmental and security forces get larger and better, and the public sees their enemy as the insurgents and not the US. As for the buying time slam, I have to say, "Well, duh." To repeat, counter-insurgency is not a military problem, it is a societal problem. Defeating the enemy in low-scale battles is not the issue, choking off replacements by isolating the insurgents from the people is the key. The Russians do this by killing or driving into exile a quarter of the population (as in Chechnya). We do it by getting the population on our side. So of course, as I've argued repeatedly, our military's role is to buy time. Our troops are the shield that prevent defeat while non-military means are the sword that gut the insurgency.
Finally, as the Chai buzz really sets it, the professor states:
Pending the final judgment of President Bush's war, this much we can say for sure: Two years after the dash on Baghdad seemingly affirmed the invincibility of the U.S. armed forces, the actual limits of American power now lie exposed for all to see. Our adversaries, real and potential, are no doubt busy contemplating the implications of those limits.
The limits of US power. Well, yes, being the strongest power does not mean we are stronger than all other powers combined. But with the Taliban overthrown and democracy developing in Afghanistan; with Saddam gone and democracy emerging in Iraq; with Libya abandoning a nuclear program; with Pakistan working with us; with NATO finally agreeing to help in Iraq; with Japan drawing closer to us to protect Taiwan; with Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia feeling the heat; and with Ukraine defying crude Russian attempts at absorbing that country, I fail to see how adversaries would contemplate our limits as opposed to contemplating our reach.
Is North Korea really comforted by our limits?
Iraq will be a friendly country and may even be a democracy when this is all done. If at that point, people like the professor want to argue that this is not a victory for us because our troops didn't kill that last insurgent, well I'll accept that as a price of victory. The good professor can get a book on the subject that will fill up his vita and bargain book bins everywhere while the US will have an ally in the war on terror in Baghdad.
Hey, at least they won't be able to level the "unilateral" charge. Kind of incompatible with our allies doing the fighting.
