Posted 8:59 AM by steve

In yet another sign that while killing terrorists is great, there is not going to be any 'victory' in Iraq, at least so far as Bush has defined victory.

Notwithstanding the kool-aid drinkers wanting to rewrite history or move the goalposts, remember that the purpose of the surge was not merely to kill Al Qaeda but to create the environment where the Iraqis could take charge of running their own country. The surge was to be a stepping stone, not an end result.

And while the surge has in fact done what was hoped: violence is down and, with it, the Iraqis have the relative peace and quiet in which they could get their act together and take charge of their own country to the point where we could leave as we were no longer needed to protect Iraq from either foreign threats (Iran or infiltrated Al Qaeda) or internal violence (Shiite v Sunni and so on).

Unfortunately, as the Post is reporting, the Iraqis are failing - AS I KNEW AND SAID THEY WOULD - to step up and get their act together. Paraphrasing the metaphor, we can create the environment for the Iraqis but we can't make them take advantage of what our soldiers died trying to do for them. We can't make them reconcile with one another, to let bygones be bygones. We can't make them give up their generational antipathies towards one another. We can't make them give up their preference for using violence to settle disputes. We can't make them into people who would rather share power with their ethnic foes than fight over having everything to themselves.

So as I've said before, let's celebrate the success our troops have been having in killing Al Qaeda; every terrorist killed is one less terrorist trying to kill Americans and every American soldier not killed by terrorists is one less American life wasted trying to fulfill Bush's ridiculous dream.

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