It seems an article of faith, even among conservatives, that the Iraq War is lost, it is just a matter of time. Even if it isn't lost on the battlefield, it will be lost domestically.
But what if that's wrong?
What if the surge strategy actually works and the country is stabilized?
That would be fantastic.
But it just isn't very likely. Iraq was only "stable" under the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, just as every other Middle Eastern Islamic nation is "stable" under strong, authoritarian governments. There is no sign that Western-style democracy can, or has ever, worked over there. Hell, look at what a train wreck it is for us... the US was
never supposed to be a majority-rules democracy. Now that it is, we get more and more Socialism. And we want to visit the same thing upon the Iraqis?
I do not believe we've "lost" in Iraq. We won, three years ago. But there is no further victory for us. We are never going to "stabilize' Iraq. There is no sign that what we're supposedly doing is working. The puppet government we're propping up will collapse within a week of the withdrawl of our soldiers and money, and there is absolutely no sign that that is ever not going to be the case.
We should give the current Iraqi government a timeline for our withdrawl, and tell them what they need to have accomplished at each stage of that timeline. No, not "when you accomplish X, we'll do Y"... "You had good and goddamned better have accomplished X on this date, because we're doing Y, and
you are the ones who'll have your heads on display in the public square if you screw this up"
An Iraq that collapses into civil war, foreign incursions, proxy warfar between Shi'a and Sunni, etc. would be really unfortunate, but it just isn't our responsibility. We've given Iraq almost 4000 American lives and nearly $500 billion. What more do we owe them?