In Iraq wishing can't make it so

Cultural war-entre- preneur
Bill O'Reilly is running around the country asking people if they want the U.S. to win in Iraq. He never elucidates what "winning" could possibly mean.
After swift-boating Rosie O'Donnell on his radio show, at some point during his appearance on Oprah last week, he asked one of the audience members who he sensed as an enemy, "do you want us to win in Iraq?" I wish the other person had asked him what "winning in Iraq" would look like, but he didn't.
But nevertheless let's answer the question without that O'Reilly insight.
Let's assume it essentially means leaving Iraq a relatively peaceful democratic society.
Of course, I'd like us to "win."
I'd also like to win the New York Marathon in a few weeks and I would have loved for my team to win the World Series, but unfortunately they lost in the first round of the playoffs.
In other words, wanting something in the real world - as opposed to the fantasies spun in the West Wing and the N.Y. Post columns - doesn't make it likely or even possible. I would have to be a different person to win the Marathon, the Yankees would have had to beat the Tigers to even get into the World Series, and we don't have a magic wand to wave to undo generations of Sunni and Shia conflict, just for starters.



Getting out may not be as easy as one might think, especially without proper planning. Here's what the Guardian has to say about the retreat from Iraq - Oops! I mean "victory."

"Close to its end, just as at its beginning and all through its execution, the occupation of Iraq has been shaped by miscalculation, haste and deceit. An ill-judged invasion fought on a misleading premise gave way to a chaotic aftermath that placed theory ahead of reality, with consequences that the world will have to endure for decades. For a time, however, even for those who opposed the war, including this paper, real hope lay in the promise of recovery, a slow imposition of order underpinned by a form of democracy that could have allowed western forces to leave Iraq gradually, and without disgrace. The case for running away was never strong while that hope remained.
"Now, although they dare not say it, even the war's architects in Washington and London know that there will be no honourable departure. They are preparing to scuttle. Military reality and political expediency are blowing away all talk of patience, reconstruction, 'staying the course' and 'getting the job done' - the desperate expectation that somehow, despite all the violence and disorder, a better destination would be found for Iraq. The language is still heard, more now from Tony Blair than President Bush. But it has become nothing more than passing cover for a retreat from western engagement that is already under way, a thin disguise draped over defeat."

....

"The crucial point is that the American and British departure must be planned with the care and understanding that was so lamentably - some would say criminally - absent when the invasion took place. Yet this is not happening. Honest planning requires that the people who created the war admit the original vision of a liberal democracy is dead. Yet they still peddle the comfortable fantasy that British and US troops will hand over to able Iraqi forces, when these are failing from Basra to Baghdad."