I think it is instructive to consider how the some on the right - like RSR - frame this debate about the wisdom of our continued involvement in the affairs of the Iraqi people: "Republicans want to "FIGHT" and “WIN” in Iraq" versus "Democrats want to "surrender" and “accept defeat” in Iraq".
There is, however, a constantly shifting definition of "winning", and, therefore, an equally shifting definition of "being defeated". At its very essence is the idea that our enemies are making some stand in Iraq and we must "win" against them there or they will have "defeated" us. This view of this involvement in Iraq as some sort of time constrained contest is artificial and tends to skew our perspective away from reality. This is not some global sporting event and we are not in the third quarter of a fixed time game. The enemy seeks to outlast us - not on the battlefield in Iraq, but in the timeless worldwide war of ideas and influence. In that war, we "win" when America's social and economic interest is felt in the world and those interests prevail in the world. We certainly need to look at that war with a wider, longer view.... we want to WIN that war of influence and ideas over the next century.
Is it really sensible to choose Iraq as the hill upon which we will die this decade? Can't we admit that we made an error in elevating Iraq into some symbolic preeminence that it does not deserve? Our war is against Islamic extremism... and that war will not be won militarily, but socially, politically, and most importantly, economically. Our war is not against Iraqi insurgents who really want to fight one another in a turf battle for oil and a 1200 year old grudge match over Islamic interpretation and ascendancy. Let them settle their own intramural differences without our continued muddying influence.
Those of us with a military background know full well that, in the major wars that engulfed our planet in the last century, America lost its share of BATTLES...America retreated from individual battlefields when it became clear that continuing to fight on that spot was not helping us win the larger victory.... when it became clear that that was not the hill we should chose to die on.... but America prevailed in those large wars because we did NOT let ourselves become obsessed with winning any one battle at the expense of overall victory.
I am all for fighting and winning the war against Islamic extremism. I know full well that our military will play a role at times in that war, but that ideas and economics will play a greater role. From the very outset, I have been against the action in Iraq, not because I didn't want to fight and win the war against Islamic extremism, but because I did not believe that our planned action in Iraq advanced our cause in that larger war.
Saddam was an asshole.... but he was an unwitting ally of ours in our war against Islamic extremism. The vision of Islamic extremists has no place for secular nation states like Jordan or Syria or Egypt or Saudi Arabia OR IRAQ. Saddam, therefore, had no vested interest in promoting or assisting an ideology that was bent on his own destruction.
Saddam was an asshole, but he did three things very well - three things that we would LOVE for someone to be doing better than we are doing them today:
1. he kept Islamic extremists from gaining bases of operation in Iraq (and don't start about Saddam's support for terrorists - his support was solely for NATIONALIST terror organizations and, as repugnant as they were and are, they are not the same as the Islamic extremists that threaten us).
2. He kept Sunnis and Shi'ites from slaughtering one another en masse in a country that was unique in its mixed population of Shiites and Sunnis at the edge of Arabia and Persia.... and
3. He acted as a foil against Iranian regional hegemony.
We need to admit that we will NEVER be able to do those three things as well as Saddam did them and that we fucked up by removing him from power and forcing ourselves to occupy a large portion of our military, our economy, and our diplomatic energy in trying to keep Iraq from boiling over when we could much more effectively use those assets to our benefit elsewhere in the world.
No one wants DEFEAT in the war on Islamic extremism, but I think we should consider leaving the battlefield we created in Iraq and focusing our efforts on winning the war that we should have been fighting in the first place.
