Have we won the war in Iraq, and if so should Liberals admit it?
For good or ill the Iraq war is now part of history - regardless of how, why, when, where, now that it’s over is Iraq headed to a better future?
The problem is that Iraq might not be an ironic war. From what I saw, the reduction in violence there is drastic and real. There is no hostile army, like the Vietcong waiting to liberate the country from our oppression. Instead, Obama’s massive troop withdrawal, carried out in the summer of 2010, has been done with the peaceful cooperation of the Iraqi government and its military. And though I’m not qualified to comment on the state of Iraq’s government—much less Lebanon’s or Palestine’s—many veteran commentators are quietly saying good things. On the Dec. 28, 2010, edition of the PBS NewsHour, Joost Hiltermann (who himself writes for the New York Review of Books) said: “I think [the Iraqi government] is fairly stable. … I don’t expect any major violence, no serious internal threats, no serious external threats either.” His fellow commentator, Michael Gordon of the New York Times, agreed.
So what if Iraq actually worked? I started to wonder after I saw the broadcast. What if, after years of struggle, mistakes, wasted money, and loss of life, the U.S. Army actually managed to help the Iraqis to “stand up as we stand down”?