Now, it's Obama's War to Lose

At the CATO Institute, David Boaz says this:

A Sweeping Rejection of President Bush

Bush and the Republicans promised choice, freedom, reform, and a restrained federal government. They delivered massive overspending, the biggest expansion of entitlements in 40 years, centralization of education, a floundering war, an imperial presidency, civil liberties abuses, the intrusion of the federal government into social issues and personal freedoms, and finally a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street that just kept on growing in the last month of the campaign. Voters who believed in limited government had every reason to reject that record. (emphasis added)

Now, he does not say which war, but his list of complaints make me think he is referring to the "floundering war" in Iraq (because that's the war that is hated by those who also perceive Bush as having trampled our civil liberties). If that is the war in question, then his thinking about it seems a lot like Barack Obama's in that it is apparently stuck in time. It's as if we lost that war a long time ago, and the only left to do now is get out troops out of that quagmire as quickly as possible. Let me just briefly remind you how that floundering war is going:




Although Americans are catching on to the fact that we really did win the war in Iraq and that we may really have replaced a genocidal dictatorship with fledgling democracy, many others are still in the dark about it (so much so that they still believe that our effort there is floundering). Like it or not, George Bush won the war in Iraq and introduced democracy into the very heart of the Middle East. Now it's Barack Obama's war to lose.

It is not unfair to say that some on the left are uncomfortable with an American military victory in Iraq and that they see real value in a perceived defeat. Back in November of 2006 -- back when al Qaeda had successfully plunged Iraq into sectarian chaos and the Iraqi people needed us the most -- James Carroll (a columnist for the Boston Globe) seemed genuinely excited about the possibility of America's apparent defeat. In fact, he thought that America's defeat at the hands of the terrorist organization that attacked us on 9/11 would be downright educational:

What it will take to end war

By James Carroll | November 6, 2006
...
It is one thing to feel uneasy about your nation's war, or even to move to a position of outright opposition. It is another to face the harsh fact that the only way out of the war is to accept defeat.
...
For all of the anguish felt over the loss of American lives, can we acknowledge that there is something proper in the way that hubristic American power has been thwarted? Can we admit that the loss of honor will not come with how the war ends, because we lost our honor when we began it? This time, can we accept defeat?

As you can see from my chart above, Barack Obama was, indeed, willing to accept defeat because he introduced a bill to withdraw our troops from Iraq just two months later. The difference is that he did not openly discuss the matter in defeatist terms. That is, he proposed to ensure our perceived defeat without coming out and saying something silly like "This time, can we accept defeat?" Fortunately for us (and for the people of Iraq), Bush was not as excited about the prospect of an American defeat, so he ordered a surge of troops that has yielded an incredible outcome that few thought possible.

As I said, now it is Obama's war to lose, and I am really curious to see if he will stick to withdraw-at-all-costs Pavlovian reflex in order to appease the Moveon.org anti-war fanatics or if he will simply adopt the Bush policy of withdrawing in a way that ensures that the hard-fought gains will be maintained. In that regard, our military commanders have some advice for Obama:

Senior U.S. military officials will likely advise Barack Obama to adjust his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by mid-2010. While promising a 16-month timetable for getting all U.S. fighting forces out, Obama repeatedly insisted on what he calls a "responsible" withdrawal...officers believe the security gains in Iraq would be put at risk if troops were withdrawn before the Iraqi security forces are in a position to protect their own communities and borders.

My best guess is that Obama will find a way to essentially adopt Bush's policy, but he'll describe it in a way that sounds like he going to "end this war" (and he'll strive never to refer to the functioning democracy now in place -- as if Iraq is as bad as it was under Saddam Hussein, contrary to what those crazy neocons believe). Then again, he might just stick to his repeated promise to the American people to withdraw our troops as quickly as possible no matter what. What a tragedy that would be.