LLS
The Status of Forces and Strategic Framework agreements portend victory. Iraq and U.S. as two sovereign, coequal countries agreed on ways forward implementing U.N. principles and purposes. Iraqi pragmatic evaluations of conditions lead talks for disengagement: not U.S. election cycle driven timelines.
General Petraeus testified the surge would execute proven counterinsurgency tactics “to improve the security for the people of Iraq in order to give Iraqi leaders the time and space they need to come to grips with tough political issues”. Throughout 2008 Iraqi people and leaders experienced deliverance from lives dominated by assassins stalking them and their families. They witnessed national institution ascendance in providing personal and material security.
Persistence for Iraq representative government thwarted al Qaeda determination that Babylon becomes the Caliphate rallying point. In Iraq, U.S. earned credibility as a counter force to all horrid factions applying murderous coercion when striving to dominate African, Oriental, and Asian politics.
Invigorating new allies’ confrontational initiatives brings Global War on Terror victory by frustrating plans, breaking alliances, and fracturing jihadist organizations into ever less effective units. Without cities, countries or armies bin Laden, successor sociopath prophets, and tyrants they empower only dream of conquest as they suffer unnaturally shortened lives as pariahs.
Yet administration leaders Obama, Biden and Clinton voted for removing most troops by April 2008, and preventing this victory. Their behavior portends traditional ally abandonment. Their actions portend escaping commitment, and reviving self-congratulatory righteousness within elegant foreign policies redefining national interest, proportional response, multi-lateralism, re-deployment and exit strategy.