Shhh. We Won.

Don't tell the NYTimes, or Senator Obama. But the war in Iraq is over and we won.

Bret Stephens claims this in his Global View column on the WSJ Ed Page. And I wholeheartedly agree. Stephens won a $100 bet from Francis Fukuyama "that Iraq would be a mess five years after the invasion." Stephens collected on the basis of troop casualties but takes the time to enumerate what has been accomplished.

Here's a partial list: Saddam is dead. Had he remained in power, we would likely still believe he had WMD. He would have been sitting on an oil bonanza priced at $140 a barrel. He would almost certainly have broken free from an already crumbling sanctions regime. The U.S. would be faced with not one, but two, major adversaries in the Persian Gulf. Iraqis would be living under a regime that, in an average year, was at least as murderous as the sectarian violence that followed its collapse. And the U.S. would have seemed powerless to shape events.

Instead, we now have a government that does not threaten its neighbors, does not sponsor terrorism, and is unlikely to again seek WMD. We have a democratic government, a first for the Arab world, and one that is increasingly capable of defending its people and asserting its interests.

We have a defeat for al Qaeda. Critics carp that had there been no invasion, there never would have been al Qaeda in Iraq. Maybe. As it is, thousands of jihadists are dead, al Qaeda has been defeated on its self-declared "central battlefield," and the movement is largely discredited on the Arab street and even within Islamist circles.

We also have -- if still only prospectively -- an Arab bulwark against Iran's encroachments in the region. But that depends on whether we simply withdraw from Iraq, or join it in a lasting security partnership.

After "Mission Accomplished," supporters are too chicken to use the W word. But I ain't: we won the war. Much work remains in Iraq, and the wider war continues, but Iraq has been won.

Freedom on the March Posted by jk at August 5, 2008 12:04 PM