War is Over

The Iraq War is over for real this time.  I was premature - okay, dead wrong - in suggesting over a year ago that the withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq in August 2010 would effectively end the conflict and begin a mollified period similar to the fragile peace that followed the 1953 Korean armistice.  In fact, American troop deaths continued, as did violence in Iraq.  But now, it's over.  It's really over.  A war that began with a huge invasion and a roar of public approval whipped up but Republican hawks ended this week with the sound of muted bass notes played at a slow tempo . . . accompanied by the faint sound of "Taps."  The Iraq War cost the lives of 4474 American service personnel, left 32,226 wounded, and cost countless of Iraqi lives.  And it got us nothing except a stronger Iranian influence in the Middle East.  We went into Iraq under false pretenses - that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and may have had something to do with 9/11 - and the Bush White House had us believing we'd enter as liberators and leave a prosperous, first-world nation behind.  The reality could not have been any more different.

The only good thing about this war, aside from the fact that it's over (for us - violence is likely to continue among Iraqis for awhile), is that Iraq veterans are likely to be treated with the dignity and respect that eluded Vietnam veterans.  They also have a wealth of real-world experience that will come in handy in the outside world and make our civilian instituions stronger.  But their maturity came out of a wasteful exercise that took valuable resources from building up our strength at home.  We will not recover from this for a long time. 

Alas, neither will Iraq.   

Middle East Jubilation

Qaddafi is dead, and American involvement in Iraq is over!

The latter headline is the big news.  While there will still be American advisers in Iraq to try to help the fledgling government, all 39,000 troops will be coming home, as hoped, with the expiration of the U.S-Iraqi agreement signed in December 2008 to keep troops there for three years.  Reports have circulated that President Obama is only pulling American troops out because he could not get an agreement for an extended stay, but if he really thought it was worth staying, he would have tried to get such an agreement.

The Iraq War didn't really end for the United States despite the pullout of combat troops in August 2010.  At the time, I likened it to the cease-fire ending the Korean War, but American soldiers and Marines in Iraq, unlike in Korea after July 1953, continued to be killed after the combat troops left . . . meaning that firing had not ceased there.  There's no indication that Iraq is completely ready to take control of its own affairs, and there's the spectre of Iran hoping to expand its dominance in the Middle Eastern region.  But Iraq is somewhat more stable now than when Saddam Hussein fell, and Obama seems to be confident he can steer Iraq in the right direction without using the military.

Hey, look how he handled Libya.      

Turning The Page

President Obama gave a measured address from the Oval Office in the White House tonight announcing the official end of combat operations in Iraq and how it's time to move on and put the war there behind us. He was very forceful in his declaration, and he was eager to thank the servicemen and servicewomen who sis all they were asked to do in the past seven years. He turned part of his focus to the need to rebuild the economy at home, and he stated that it's necessary to meet that challenge with the same fortitude and sacrifice that our troops showed in Iraq, in addition to noting that Afghanistan remains a war that al-Qaeda and the Taliban must not be allowed to win. He made it clear enough that the Iraq War was a drain on our resources, and that we have to build them up again to secure the liberty and prosperity that American troops have always fought for.

It was difficult for Obama - whose party faces a potential wipeout in November's congressional midterm elections - to strike the right balance between making a national speech and a political speech, and he did well enough. My only regret was that he didn't go farther. Rather than call out the neo-conservatives and war hawks who started this war for illegitimate reasons, he actually expressed the sincere interest his predecessor, George Walker Bush, showed for protecting and securing the nation, even though he did neither. (It was tantamount to a presidential pardon of Ford-esque proportions.) That was as far as he got in naming names. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and all the other neo-cons who got us into war on lies and predicted a glorious victory in Iraq were left unmentioned.

Other commentators will note that the Republicans who have blocked Obama's efforts to revive the economy - John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, and Jon Kyl - never came up in Obama's speech, but that would have been inappropriate, as partisanship in a speech about war can only go so far. But the President's emphasis on the economy and moving forward may signal a desire to start acting aggressively against those Republicans in Congress (i.e., most of them) who have stymied Obama's agenda and blame lack of progress with the economy on the Democrats.

Now that Obama has stressed his role as Commander-in-Chief, he needs to get back into campaign mode and come out swinging. His administration, the country, and the Democrats are in trouble.

Turn the page.