Who can tell the definition, so clear, of victory?

According to Robert Zelnick writing at Policy Review, our people in Iraq do indeed have a definition of victory (the numbers have been added by me):

On the walls of military offices across Iraq, a poster printed in bold black letters reminds those deployed what the job should look like when they’re finished: “End State: (1) An Iraq that is at peace with its neighbors, (2) that has a representative government that respects the human rights of all Iraqis, (3) that is an ally in the war on terror, (4) that has a security force that can maintain domestic order and can deny Iraq as a safe haven for terrorists.”

I do not see the remotest possibility of No. 2 coming about. At present the Iraqi government is serving in large part as the agency of the Shia in their conflict with the Sunnis. Name a single thing we are doing or are discussing doing that would change that. As for No. 3, the “war on terror” is a misnomer, and really means the war on militant or jihadist Islam. But militant or jihadist Muslims now have a substantial share of power in the Iraqi government that we helped create. As for No. 4, if, after a U.S. occupation of Iraq that has lasted longer than the American war against Japan, the Iraqis still do not have security forces that can maintain domestic order, what is the chance of their ever having them, short of the return to Iraq of a Mideast-type despotism that will establish order through sheer brute force?

By the way, the title of this entry comes from my favorite poem by Emily Dickenson, and the only one I know by heart:

“Success is Counted Sweetest”

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break agonized and clear.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 20, 2006 02:38 PM | Send