Can We Really Claim Victory in Iraq?

Not according to Elan Journo at the Ayn Rand Institute. With the 5th anniversary of Bush's war having come and gone we must ask ourselves what have we accomplished in the Middle East. Iran, the fountainhead of terrorism, is still there, intact and America has lost 4000 soldiers in a war that doesn't seem to have an end in sight. Isn't there another way to fight this and get it over with once and for all?

You Call this "Victory"?

March 24, 2008 by Elan Journo
Irvine, CA--In Congress, on the campaign trail, and across America, many have accepted a strangely favorable view of what President Bush's war policies have accomplished.
Conservatives regard his "surge" as a master stroke and celebrate what Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell calls the "extraordinary progress that has been made in Iraq." The popular sense that the war is going well is at least part of the story behind the comeback of McCain, whose support for Bush's policies initially dragged him down.

Democratic candidates Clinton and Obama both concede that the "surge" has worked and grudgingly quibble about the slow pace of political reconciliation among Iraqis.

"But the idea that we're nearing 'victory' in Iraq is a fantasy," said Elan Journo, resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. "Iraqis may now be butchering each other a bit less often, but Bush's war policy has done nothing to protect Americans."

"Cheerleaders of the President's policy focus myopically on whether insurgents have been kicked out, for the time being, from one street in one neighborhood of Baghdad. But the only rational benchmark for the war's success is whether it has made the lives of Americans safer from the threat of Islamists. Our security depends on how we're doing in the face of the global enemy, the ideological movement of the jihadists, which is widely popular and sponsored by states such as Iran.

"Far from working to defeat the enemy, Bush's war policy has been, not to defeat the jihadist forces, but to show 'compassion' to Iraqis and Afghans, to raise them out of poverty and give them elections. Bush's policy has left the enemy undefeated and empowered."

It is not Washington, but the hostile Iranian regime that can definitely claim to have scored "successes" thanks to Bush's policies, argues Mr. Journo. "As the leading sponsor of Islamist hostility and terrorism, Iran has grown stronger in the face of Washington's inaction. Iran arms insurgents in Iraq and jihadists across the region in attacking Americans. And Iran has won enormous power over Iraq. (CONTINUE READING HERE).

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