Now It Is Defeat That Has A Thousand Fathers

Gen. Petraeus said about Iraq roughly what George Bush has said but lefties are buzzing with glee - let me lead with Matt Yglesias:

General Petraeus recognizes what all sensible people can see, but John McCain and George W. Bush can’t, that there will be no victory in Iraq no matter what we do.

Combine this with Nouri al-Maliki’s endorsement of progressive proposals for a timeline for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq and in a sane universe we’d all be recognizing about know that the conservative emperor has no clothes on Iraq.

Geez, whatever did Petraeus say?  Nothing that surprising, actually:

No victory in Iraq, says Petraeus

The outgoing commander of US troops in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, has said that he will never declare victory there.

In a BBC interview, Gen Petraeus said that recent security gains were "not irreversible" and that the US still faced a "long struggle".

When asked if US troops could withdraw from Iraqi cities by the middle of next year, he said that would be "doable".

...In an interview with the BBC's Newsnight programme, Gen Petraeus said that when he took charge in Iraq "the violence was horrific and the fabric of society was being torn apart".

Leaving his post, he said there were "many storm clouds on the horizon which could develop into real problems".

Overall he summed up the situation as "still hard but hopeful", saying that progress in Iraq was "a bit more durable" but that the situation there remained fragile.

He said he did not know that he would ever use the word "victory": "This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade... it's not war with a simple slogan."

That is hardly declaring defeat or saying that we can't win in the sense of creating a stable, democratic Iraq capable of securing itself.  Here is Bush from Jan 2007 announcing the surge:

Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship.  But victory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab world -- a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people.  A democratic Iraq will not be perfect.  But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them -- and it will help bring a future of peace and security for our children and our grandchildren.

Michael Yon declared "victory in Iraq over the summer:

"A fair-minded person could say with reasonable certainty that the war has ended. A new and better nation is growing legs. What's left is messy politics that likely will be punctuated by low-level violence and the occasional spectacular attack. Yet, the will of the Iraqi people has changed, and the Iraqi military has dramatically improved, so those spectacular attacks are diminishing along with the regular violence. Now it's time to rebuild the country, and create a pluralistic, stable and peaceful Iraq. That will be long, hard work. But by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won."

And from the McCain website:

I do not want to keep our troops in Iraq a minute longer than necessary to secure our interests there. Our goal is an Iraq that can stand on its own as a democratic ally and a responsible force for peace in its neighborhood. Our goal is an Iraq that no longer needs American troops. And I believe we can achieve that goal, perhaps sooner than many imagine.

McCain is not insisting that we will only have achieved victory in Iraq if every neighborhood is as pleasant as Georgetown on a September afternoon.  And Petraeus is not saying that a stable, democratic Iraq that can defend itself is not achievable.

I can't imagine Matt's resolute commitment to defeat is a vote-getter.

Comments

[MAJ (P) John]

Is success so painful to contemplate that Mr. Y would rather sift through rhetoric to find some small hope for "nonvictory". GEN Petreaus (and the CinC too) has been exceedingly careful about ever saying anything like "victory" - the first car bomb that went off would turn into "I thought you Rethuglicans said we won"11!1!!!1!

For Mr. Y, I would ask - Did El Salvador win it's battle against it's insurgency? When EXACTLY would that have happened? How about Peru vs. the Shining Path? When was "V-in-Malaysia Day?"

I'd love to send him a copy of the COIN Field Manual.

[Soylent Red]

I'd love to send him a copy of the COIN Field Manual.

Sir,

They wouldn't read it anyway. There are not enough pictures to color.

I noticed tonight that the death count watch has begun for Afghanistan on the nightly news. Only a matter of time before the word "quagmire" makes a comeback.

[Steve J.]

And Petraeus is not saying that a stable, democratic Iraq that can defend itself is not achievable.

He IS saying that the Surge failed to attain its strategic objective.

[MayBee]

Major John!!!!!

[Quasiblogger]

Reminds me of the time Bush said something like: The war on terror is not winnable in the ordinary sense of the word. I'm sure everyone remembers what the Democrats did with that line.

SteveJ: No, that's what you're saying.

[Steve J.]

Quasi,

Yes, that is EXACTLY what Petraeus is saying. If Teh Surge were succesful, then we would be drawing down our troops MUCH more rapidly.

[Neo]

Is Matt Yglesias a retard ? Perhaps so.

[bl]

Steve, The US is criticized for ignoring the brutality of petro-dollar seeking dictators to procure oil to fuel our economy. The environmental lobby does not want to allow domestic production, is against nuclear energy, and is more concerned about snails, lizards, and caribou than self sufficiency.

So we remove a brutal dictator from Iraq, and intend to leave a functioning, stable, representative country to its people, which is unheard of in the ME, and you can only complain about the failure of the surge.

[MAJ (P) John]

SteveJ,

I happened to have been mobilized in 2007, and I have been here (Iraq) for some time now. Hard as it may be to accept - "The Surge" worked. The temporary upswing in force levels was to secure Baghdad, and give us the room to go out with the ever growing (one would almost use the term "resurgent" non-ironically) ISF and take it to the AQI. This, along with the shift in tactics - no more living on FOB Gigantor, get out into the COPs and JSSs - combined with the Sunnis becoming utterly weary of bing AQI chattel, and the Shia tired of being their victims.

If the Surge "failed" why are the ISF ascendant (I helped a bit during the Battle of Basra, and saw them up close) AQI dead or running and we keep turning over provinces?

You have moved the goalposts from "secure Baghdad so we can go on the offensive" to "Hey, it ain't an Arabic speaking Martha's Vineyard, so Failure!!1!1!"

[matt]

True believers have a very hard time accepting truths that contradict their beliefs. There are still plenty of old commies in Russia, east germany, and Berkeley who just can't believe it all fell apart in '89.

Same here. It could be 50 years from now, and some revisionist schmuck historian will write that the seeds of the Iraqi Constitutional Crisis of 2058 were laid with the too hasty withdrawal of American forces in 2012. You just can't win these arguments.

Extending that same Yglesias logic of course means that we "lost" in Germany and Japan because we still have troops in those countries.

[Danube of Thought]

Yglesias and SteveJ's lust for defeat is unmistakable. I'm sure they will be unable to connect that lust with the defeat they are going to suffer in November. For my part, I don't care whether they make the connection or not. It is enough for me that they be made very seriously unhappy, and it is quite certain that that will happen.

[matt]

one other factor is keeping our troops near the oil....as demand grows, it's going to get nasty. We now have a military presence in Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi...hmmmm....a pattern....I'd say it was just covering our bases (pun intended).

[Thomas Jackson]

Steve:

I guess this is why we lost the war in 1945 when we had more troops mobilized and overseas than at any time in the war. Care to tell us about your vast experience in national security and the military?

Ignorance about the military is never demonstrated more completely than by metrosexuals twits whose sole experience with the military is playing with GI Joes.

[BOATBUILDER]

Hey. Maj (p) John. Thank you. And all the soldiers there with you. God bless you all.

[kim]

So Steve, what mission would you try to accomplish? Is it all mission impossible for you? Would you be happy being Muslim?
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