Bill Buckley on Iraq

Here, Bill makes it even clearer:

I have myself concluded that our Iraqi mission has failed. Missions have to be judged successes or failures with some reference to a time scale. If that scale is stretched forever, it is not authentically tested. If the mission is to liberate the Prisoner of Zenda and 10 years later he is still in jail, the mission can reasonably be classified as having failed, never mind that in the 15th year he is actually rescued.

The important qualifier is "time scale." What GWB and his coterie continue to state (a tactical error) is that "establishing democracy" constitutes success of the mission: "Democracy and the accompanying rise of political and civic institutions are the only route to a better world -- and because the work is difficult doesn't mean it can be ignored. The cycle has to be broken. The process of democratic reform has begun, and now would be precisely the wrong time to lose our nerve and turn our back on the freedom agenda." (P Wehner, WH Office of Strategic Initiatives.)

THAT leaves us at the mercy of the various insurgent parties including the Iranian 'bots, who can (and have, and will) play cat-and-mouse with bombings, asassinations, and other disturbances which tend to demonstrate that "democracy" has NOT been "established."

In other words, "we have ceded control of the pace and direction of the war to those who control the progress of creating democracy in Iraq. And that, unfortunately, means our principal enemies (Iran and Syria) and our faux ally, Saudi Arabia. This is a strategic plan that can only lead to defeat. We who support the president expect better." (Jed Babbin, AmSpec)

Clearly we have a case of politicians defining 'victory' in a way substantially different than the military might. We should have thunka that a long time ago.