The Pachyderm Post

Could we all just slow down a minute in our rabid tooth-gnashings about the Iraq War?

And – as we decelerate – could we just briefly answer one question:

How will we know when the Iraq War is won – or lost?

Put another way:

What would constitute victory, exactly?

I say “exactly” because a very great deal rides on this determination.

Obviously the deployment of U.S. and “Coalition” troops depends on whether and when the war is won or lost, and by whom.

So too does the apportionment of credit for victory or blame for defeat.

If the U.S. “wins” for instance, clearly George Bush’s “dogged, Truman-esque determination” in the face of popular and Congressional opposition will be front and center when the medals are distributed.

If the U.S. “loses”, Iraqi President al-Maliki will share center stage blame with Gold Star Anti-War Mother Cindy Sheehan and just plain old Anti-War Mother Jane Fonda (“There [she] goes again!”).

To my fairly attentive knowledge, no one – NO ONE – has clearly articulated the fairly important definition of victory in this, the central and largest theater in the “Global War on Terror.”

To paraphrase President Bush, this victory will not be marked by a ceremony on a battleship. Or an aircraft carrier…

For some time now, violent fatalities in Iraq have averaged about one hundred a day. Would victory be none? Or ten? Or twenty?

For how long? A day? A week? A month? Three months?

And for how long after U.S. and Coalition forces departed would this reduction in death and destruction need to hold for victory to be confirmed?

A year? Six months? Six weeks?

There must be a task force working on this thorny problem, somewhere deep in the bowels of the Pentagon or of Karl Rove’s bunker.

But it is clearly a top secret mission, something even Valerie Plame would not have been allowed to know.

Nor Tim Russert, nor Bob Woodward, nor even Katie Couric.

So, what indications should we seek…that victory has been won?

For many, the famous kiss, captured by Alfred Eisenstadt, marked the true end to World War II.

First there was the ceremony on the U.S.S Missouri…

Then, that visual evocation of love, not war, sealed the conclusion: the war was over.

What will do it this time?

What will be the marker for the cessation of hostilities; for ticker tape and bunting on mid-western tree trunks; for post-war public displays of affection?

The answer is that there will be no marker.

There is no fleet to destroy…no Emperor to surrender…no territory to claim.

We now find ourselves in mankind’s first truly Perpetual War, with a clearly defined beginning – the invasion of Afghanistan – and no end at all.

Which is both a dilemma and a benediction for the Bush Administration.

It is a dilemma since even the most positive – and necessarily temporary – outcome of the Iraq War is purest ambivalence, which only the most cynical observer could call “victory.”

And therein lies the benediction.

Because the most cynical observer will do just that.

George Bush will never admit defeat, and he will declare victory with the same conviction with which he declared democracy in Iraq, and he will do it with less evidence.

Declaring “democracy” required only the purple fingers of Iraqi voters.

Declaring “victory” will require only the upraised thumb of “The Decider” himself, raised in welcome to our returning, crippled military at some future land-bound ceremony.

This ceremony will not record or reference the saddest and most tragic truth of this war: that we lost it the minute we invaded Iraq without a plan for making and keeping peace.

Not “democracy”…just peace.

In doing so, we broke an elemental – perhaps the elemental – tenet of counter-insurgent warfare: do not kill or injure, or cause to be killed or injured, more “good people” than “bad people.”

If you make this one, huge mistake, you will drive “good people” away (physically, spiritually and emotionally) and you will make more – a lot more – “bad people.”

The former consequence is why the middle class of Iraq has left or is leaving the country and why a majority of Iraqis apparently feel it is justified to kill American troops.

The latter consequence is why the name “civil war” only partly describes the incredible chaos and violence that has paralyzed the country.

The final finger, the one that the Bush Administration is trying to jam into the violent breach in the Iraqi dam, has a name: General David Petraeus.

Is he not wise enough to realize that this war was lost by the U.S. long ago, regardless of any success that he may have in temporarily suppressing the present violence?

Sadly, the only “victory” he can enable is the ceremonial, digital one.

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