Victory in Iraq: Debasing Public Discourse in a Democracy

The president talks often of victory or success in Iraq, of winning or losing the war, and he brands opponents or skeptics of his policies as advocates of surrender, as defeatists. But this is a gross distortion of the reality of the situation, which is that we have already lost much in this self-imposed disaster, in creating a breeding ground for terrorists, in destabilizing a hotspot, in ceding influence to Iran, in stretching our armed forces thin in an era that requires alertness on many fronts, in dissolving the aura of invincibility around those armed forces, in setting back efforts to win over the hearts of Arabs by decades, and in dreadfully diminishing American prestige in the world. These are the consequences of the president’s ill-advised, unnecessary enterprise in Iraq, and it makes no sense to talk of victory. The best we can hope for is to minimize the awful consequences of consistent past blundering. It is important to define the situation realistically and to not allow the president and his allies to establish in public discourse this confusing dichotomy of victory and defeat that debilitates meaningful debate about the way ahead. It’s not about winning; it’s about salvaging whatever we can out of the wreckage and preventing its spread. Such debasement of discourse is a clear and present danger to a democracy.