The Not-Lost-Yet Cause

Nick Gillespie | August 28, 2007

From a new Zogby poll:

A majority of Americans - 54% - believe the United States has not lost the war in Iraq, but there is dramatic disagreement on the question between Democrats and Republicans, a new UPI/Zogby Interactive poll shows. While two in three Democrats (66%) said the war effort has already failed, just 9% of Republicans say the same.

The respondents offer a guess as to what victory will look like:

Asked to define a U.S. victory in Iraq, 37% of American adults overall said it would be achieved when Iraq gains control over its own internal security (a view with which 58% of Republicans, but just 17% of Democrats, agree). But nearly as many Americans (34%) said they don't believe a U.S. victory in Iraq is possible - 60% of Democrats agree there cannot be victory in Iraq, compared to just 7% of Republicans.

Overall, 13% said a U.S. victory will be achieved when a secure Iraq forms a democratic government, and 11% said the U.S. has already achieved victory in Iraq.

Eleven percent say we've already won? Then let's declare victory and get the hell out already.

Whole thing here.

Comments

lunchstealer|8.28.07 @ 4:49PM|#

Of course we haven't lost. We went in there to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and bring Democracy to the middle east. Hussein's all strung up, and they painted a bunch of fingers blue.

That's my idea of Victory!

|8.28.07 @ 4:50PM|#

"Eleven percent say we've already won? Then let's declare victory and get the hell out already."

I'd guess it's probably about eleven percent of Americans who, when we move out of Iraq, want us to move into Iran.

old coot|8.28.07 @ 4:52PM|#

to crudely paraphrase Sen Danial Patrick Moynihan . . the war was over in 2 weeks, the 10 year occupation has become a bitch

|8.28.07 @ 5:04PM|#

Hussein's all strung up...

Didn't his noggin come off when they fucked up the hanging?

|8.28.07 @ 5:16PM|#

Asked to define a U.S. victory in Iraq, 37% of American adults overall said it would be achieved when Iraq gains control over its own internal security (a view with which 58% of Republicans, but just 17% of Democrats, agree). But nearly as many Americans (34%) said they don't believe a U.S. victory in Iraq is possible

Can't it be both?

|8.28.07 @ 5:26PM|#

Sigh. This whole win-lose thing is just partisan politics in disguise. On the one hand, we did defeat the military and topple the government of Iraq. Clearly, those were our main objectives. Then hubris (and fear of the dreaded "power vacuum") set in, and we decided to start fixing the Middle East. In the short term, we're clearly failing in that task.

However, the debate really isn't over success or failure. It's over whether we should stay there long enough to actually establish and stabilize a Western-style government. I think there's little doubt that we could succeed if we were there another 20-30 years, but who really wants to do that?

The answer is that we achieved our original objectives, failed in our revised objectives, and--hopefully--will decide that we're really not interested in solving all of the world's problems on our own. And so we leave.

As for the blame game, the administration should suffer for making the wrong decisions and for not understanding (or communicating to the people) the sheer scope of the commitment needed to achieve the revised objectives. This isn't Vietnam, because we aren't losing to anyone, but it isn't the end of WWII, either. Our need to continue this occupation was never clear to me, and I think only isolated pundit-types could ever talk themselves into a long-term occupation in the Middle East.

Anonymo the Anonymous|8.28.07 @ 5:55PM|#

What about all those benchmarks set by the liberal media?

DONDEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Charlie (Colorado)|8.28.07 @ 6:02PM|#

Nick, I think you are a positive inspiration. Think of what a role model you must be for all the other idiots who want to have careers in media.

|8.28.07 @ 6:36PM|#

But nearly as many Americans (34%) said they don't believe a U.S. victory in Iraq is possible

What exactly is this proposition trying to convey? Do these people believe that there is nothing that would ever qualify as victory? Do they believe that there are victory conditions, but we would never under any condition meet them? Or Do they believe that there are victory conditions, we could meet them, but, for whatever reasons, we will fail to meet them?

Trollaphile|8.28.07 @ 7:16PM|#

Out of curisoty, until we define victory and defeat, how do we really know if either is possible?

|8.28.07 @ 7:19PM|#

Polls are like that cute little dance that honeybees do to tell the other worker bees where to go to suck flowers. Another name for the "other worker bees" is politicians.

|8.28.07 @ 7:22PM|#

Sigh. This whole win-lose thing is just partisan politics in disguise. On the one hand, we did defeat the military and topple the government of Iraq. Clearly, those were our main objectives.

Isn't that like saying we won Vietnam because Communism didn't spread like wildfire over Southeast Asia? That was our primary goal.

Even though we lost that battle (er, proxy war) vs. Communism, we won the war a little over a decade later. And Vietnam is liberal, not communist and a trading patner. Woo-hoo, we won Vietnam!

|8.28.07 @ 7:59PM|#

It's not a defeat, it's a failure, like prohibition.

We didn't lose to the bootleggers. We stopped implementing a pointless policy that was harming us, and doing nobody any good.

If we removed the embagro on Cuba tomorrow, would we have lost to Cuba? Would we have suffered a defeat?

|8.28.07 @ 11:45PM|#

We couldn't have won the Cold War if we stayed in Vietnam until the mid 1980s, and we won't defeat Islamic extremism if we stay in Iraq until 2017.

Just as getting out of Vietnam put us in a much better strategic position then, so will getting out of Iraq do so now.

|8.29.07 @ 9:55AM|#

And Vietnam is liberal, not communist and a trading patner.

Vietnam is a trading partner, but it is a communist state and not very liberal at all.

|8.29.07 @ 10:28AM|#

We have got to stay the course! We cannot cut and run! We have to get all the Iraqi terorists what were responsible for 911. We got the mastermind of 911, Saddam Husseain, but we need to get all the Iraqois terorists.

We have a right to premptive war, we can attach any country that might at some point in the future harm us.

The American people want WAR!!! Some Iraqis have to diew for 911.

Eric Dondero|8.29.07 @ 10:36AM|#

You forgot OKC Bombing Joe.

But of course, Libertarian cynics, don't believe that there was any Middle Eastern connection there. Ahh, John Doe #2 was just made up. Don't believe that OKC City Councilman and his two staffers who saw a Middle Eastern man running away from the scene 5 minutes after the blast, with Tim McVeigh. Don't believe the other 22 documented eyewitnesses who also say the Middle Eastern Man in OKC with McVeigh.

Doesn't quite fit the Anti-War template to believe that Al Qaeda, and even Iraqi Intelligence was behind OKC. So, you just got to ignore it ever happened.

Trust the Government's version of the story. After all, the Government at the time was being run by Clinton and Reno.

|8.29.07 @ 10:48AM|#

Eric-

But, but, World Trade Center 7!! 9/11 was an inside job!!

So I see you are a conspiracy theorist too? There are loose ends in any investigation, only a fool or an ideologue with a pre-determined agenda concludes from that that theres is a conspiracy.

|8.29.07 @ 9:02PM|#

Dear Joe ([e-mail]),

I comment regularly here as "joe" with a little j, and my email address is "[e-mail]."

So you can see how there might be some confusion with the handle you use. Could you please come up with something less likely to mix people up?

|8.29.07 @ 9:04PM|#

BTW, it's spelled "Iroquois," and I see no reason to smear them as terrorists.

Eric Dondero|8.29.07 @ 9:32PM|#

Cesar, there's no conspiracy about OKC. It's cold hard fact.

Read the Jayna Davis book - The Third Terrorist (NY Times bestseller), endorsed by former CIA Director James Woolsey.

|8.29.07 @ 10:01PM|#

BTW, it's spelled "Iroquois," and I see no reason to smear them as terrorists

Open your eyes, joe! We're locked in a struggle with Haudenosaunee-fascism!