Accepting Defeat in Iraq

Everyone is spinning the Iraq mission's so-called end but no one seems willing to accept defeat.

Republicans are complaining that the president didn't mention George
W. Bush often enough in his speech announcing the end of combat
operations. In fact, he did, quite a bit, and in an over-generous way,
most sane people agree. As GRITtv commentator Bill Fletcher, Jr.
put it Wednesday, "Iraq wasn't a case of a war gone bad with good
intentions--it was begun illegally and handled wrong from the start."

The people who got the shortest shrift in the president's speech were
the Iraqis. In particular, the Iraqi parliament. Obama made much of the
fact that was following through on a promise to bring combat troops out
of Iraq (for which he's clearly hoping to score election points) but
there was only one oblique reference to the Status of Forces Agreement
(SOFA) which actually forces US combat troops to leave.

The timeline, terms and the troop draw-down stipulated in SOFA were
signed by U.S. and Iraqi officials on Nov. 16, 2008 and have stood as
the law of the land ever since. As the U.S. right proclaimed the surge a
success; so too, Democrats now claiming credit for a withdrawal they
didn't really have much choice about. (Certainly not if they are going
to claim credit for Iraqi democracy at the same time.)

And then there's the Left. With over 50,000 troops remaining - and
the largest embassy on the planet - some on the left are pushing the
claim that the U.S. maintains a grip. Uncle Alexander argues that, to
the contrary, in terms of every goal set for the invasion - finding
WMD, building democracy, accessing oil, building peace - the U.S.
invasion has been a total defeat. (Beat the Devil found Reuters' account of Iraq's oil auctions interesting reading.)

Better we come to grips with defeat than proclaim that a lawless
operation in some way made the U.S. stronger. It didn't. Iraq's in
ruins. Afghanistan's next. America's crooked, killer appetite for
conquest does us - and the world - no good.