Three Years Gone, and Almost Three More Years To Go

Monday is the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, as you probably know. The war is bound to continue for some time, but I'm guessing it will come to some sort of close within 2-4 years. The Bush administration cannot afford to withdraw quickly - doing so would destroy whatever credibility they have left on the subject of national security. Neither can they afford to try to stay indefinitely; most of the public has turned against the war, and more join them every day. Whether the administration withdraws our forces while loudly proclaiming victory (again) or leaves the dirty job of cleaning up the mess for the next president depends on circumstance. I'd bet on the former; another year of this slow-motion train wreck of a war might see Bush's approval ratings plummet to Nixon/Watergate-like numbers.

In the big scheme of things, I don't think it matters much what the timetable for withdrawal is (although sooner is better, since it means fewer soldiers and maybe even fewer Iraqis will get killed). The war was lost the day we invaded, because we invaded, and made worse by the collateral damage from the occupation, e.g., Abu Ghraib. It's a setback, not a defeat, but the consequences may last for decades. We've damaged our standing in the world, weakened our alliances, damaged our economy, eroded our civil liberties, and polarized the electorate, as well as destabilizing the Middle East even further.

The agony of the occupation may continue for several more years but politically it's over, in much the same way Vietnam was over after the Tet offensive.

The only possible non-bad consequence of this ("good" is too strong an adjective) is that the administration's ability to make bold unilateral moves is gone. And that makes them less dangerous, because the two things they've consistently demonstrated is their inability to make good decisions and their inability to competently execute any policy or strategy.

And because incompetence is the hallmark of the Bush Administration, we should all pray that no more disasters on the scale of 9-11 or Katrina happen while they're still in office. The failure of their Iraq adventure is not the worst thing that can happen.