Defining Victory In Iraq

Frederick Kagan does a good job of explaining just what victory will look like and how that picture is shaping up in this must read piece from the Weekly Standard.

Virtually everyone who wants to win this war agrees: Success will have been achieved when Iraq is a stable, representative state that controls its own territory, is oriented toward the West, and is an ally in the struggle against militant Islamism, whether Sunni or Shia. This has been said over and over. Why won't war critics hear it? Is it because they reject the notion that such success is achievable and therefore see the definition as dishonest or delusional? Is it because George Bush has used versions of it and thus discredited it in the eyes of those who hate him? Or is it because it does not offer easily verifiable benchmarks to tell us whether or not we are succeeding? There could be other reasons--perhaps critics fear that even thinking about success or failure in Iraq will weaken their demand for an immediate "end to the war." Whatever the explanation for this tiresome deafness,here is one more attempt to flesh out what success in Iraq means and how we can evaluate progress toward it.

Iraq is swiftly becoming a stable and strong ally of the US in the fight against radicalized islamo-terrorism. The Iraqi people of all sects and athnicities have rejected the extremist's forms of sha`ria as imposed by Al Qaeda or the Mahdi Army and are tired of the thuggery and violence the extremists bring with them. The Iraqi people are fighting and dying to free themselves from the grip of tyrants including religious ones, we should help them succeed. Success builds on success and the Iraqi people are seeing it and responding.