The Murdoch Street Journal published and article that once again declares victory: "The War in Iraq is Over. We've Won," reports Bret Stephens. Bold. What does that mean John McCain will do for the next hundred years?
My if it takes more than 100 words to prove victory, then you probably ain't won yet, but he bases the decision on the fact that Francis Fukuyama conceded a bet about whether Iraq would still be "a mess" five years after the war started in 2003. In my book, a country that can't stand on it's own without 100,000+ foreign troops occupying it as peacekeepers qualifies as a mess, and few would argue that it wasn't a mess in March at the date of the 5-year anniversary.
But that's neither here nor there. This is the key point Mr. Fukuyama points out that trumps the current conditions on the ground: "We've spent a trillion or so dollars, 30,000 dead or wounded, a large loss in international influence and prestige, all for the sake of disarming a country with no WMDs." Where is the margin indeed? Few dispute the tangential benefits that have been realized by giving Saddam the boot, but those benefits weren't the main reason for entering. I, along with others including Mr. Fukuyama, have said from the start that regardless of your personal views about the war, it was never giving the American Taxpayer the most bang for it's military spending buck in the socalled "war on terror."
My if it takes more than 100 words to prove victory, then you probably ain't won yet, but he bases the decision on the fact that Francis Fukuyama conceded a bet about whether Iraq would still be "a mess" five years after the war started in 2003. In my book, a country that can't stand on it's own without 100,000+ foreign troops occupying it as peacekeepers qualifies as a mess, and few would argue that it wasn't a mess in March at the date of the 5-year anniversary.
But that's neither here nor there. This is the key point Mr. Fukuyama points out that trumps the current conditions on the ground: "We've spent a trillion or so dollars, 30,000 dead or wounded, a large loss in international influence and prestige, all for the sake of disarming a country with no WMDs." Where is the margin indeed? Few dispute the tangential benefits that have been realized by giving Saddam the boot, but those benefits weren't the main reason for entering. I, along with others including Mr. Fukuyama, have said from the start that regardless of your personal views about the war, it was never giving the American Taxpayer the most bang for it's military spending buck in the socalled "war on terror."
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