If there’s one thing of which the Washington Post never tires, it’s predicting victory in the Iraqi war. The Post’s June 1 lead editorial is headlined “The Iraqi Upturn: Don’t look now, but the U.S.-backed government and army may be winning the war.” Well, don’t look now, but the Post may be lying again.
Notice that the Post doesn’t say that we’ve won in Iraq, or even that we’re winning in Iraq. Rather, we may be winning. That’s because the peg on which this latest effusion hangs is Gen. Petreaus’ statement that in the fall he will “probably” recommend troop reductions that go beyond those already planned. The planned troop reductions, you may recall, will withdraw the last of the “surge” brigades—those brigades that were already supposed to have been withdrawn—so that in late 2008 we will be back to the troop levels that we had in 2006. That this will occur just in time for the November elections is purely coincidental.
Unsurprisingly, the Post makes no mention of the eighteen measures of success originally established by the Bush Administration to determine of the “Surge” was working. Unsurprisingly, the Post also makes no mention of the fact that the Iraqi government has taken no steps to ensure that that country’s provincial elections, supposedly set for October, will actually occur. Nor does the Post mention that more than five years after a nation of more than three hundred million invaded a country of less than thirty million, after the deaths of more than five hundred thousand Iraqis, after over four million Iraqis were driven into exile, after the expenditure of over four thousand American lives, and after the expenditure of over a trillion dollars, we have yet to capture or kill a single person who was even remotely involved in the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and while our own power and influence in the Middle East declines, that of Iran increases. In light of those facts, the Post’s conclusion that we “may” be winning in Iraq is not optimistic, but absurd.
