"The Victory So Far" In Iraq Is Reversible

We believe that the conditions are such now that we are able to celebrate the victory that we've had so far

Dana Perino, White House Press Secretary, November 19, 2008

The progress does remain fragile and does remain reversible

General David Petraeus, October 7, 2008

"Victory" is a dangerous word to deploy, especially when your generals on the ground avoid using it, and especially not loosely.  Ever since "Mission Accomplished," the Bush Administration has been searching for formulas to describe kicking the Iraq can down the road to January 20, finally seizing on the amorphous "upon success."  Where "success" can be defined whichever way they choose.  The benchmark is now the Thanksgiving Day passage by the Iraqi Parliament of the Strategic Framework for Iraqi-US Relations, plus the Status of Forces Agreement.  At least the Iraqis get to have their say: no such vote is scheduled for the US Congress.

But Ms. Perino's odd formulation - "the victory that we've had so far" - is so weaselly.  "So far," meaning until January 20, 2009?  No guarantees for what happens after that.  And what if Iraqi passage is just the prelude to disagreements over the interpretation of the texts?  After all, the Arabic version of the documents calls them the "withdrawal accords."

Here's an important McClatchy piece on the curious silence coming out of Washington on what the agreements mean, depending on where you're sitting:

The Bush administration has adopted a much looser interpretation than the Iraqi government of several key provisions of the pending U.S.-Iraq security agreement, U.S. officials said Tuesday — just hours before the Iraqi parliament was to hold its historic vote.

These include a provision that bans the launch of attacks on other countries from Iraq, a requirement to notify the Iraqis in advance of U.S. military operations and the question of Iraqi legal jurisdiction over American troops and military contractors.

Officials in Washington said the administration has withheld the official English translation of the agreement in an effort to suppress a public dispute with the Iraqis until after the Iraqi parliament votes.

Those differences in interpretation could be exactly the kind of poisonous legacy that the Obama Administration will have to contend with when it first meets with the Iraqi Government.  And these are not over minor technicalities: launching attacks from Iraq (on Iran? Syria?); notification of US military operations on (presumably sovereign) Iraqi soil; legal jurisdiction over US troops and contractors (see Abu Ghraib, Blackwater shootings).

"The victory we've had so far," when 146,000 US troops maintain a tenuous status quo amidst Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish populations that have been driven apart by Bush's 2003 invasion, is indeed "fragile and reversible."

Enter President-Elect Barack Obama, who will want to carry through responsibly with his commitment to withdraw US troops from Iraq.  In less than two months, he'll be Commander in Chief.  Which means he'll have to contend with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose Chairman, Admiral Michael Mullen, has been calling attention of late to the massive logistical tail in Iraq, and the time-consuming difficulties of removing it as troops draw down.

Now, I appreciate the need to "power-wash" thousands of military vehicles before they're shipped back to the US, and to shrink-wrap helicopters to protect them from the salt air en route to their home bases (see this excellent article on the logistical logjam of pulling out from Iraq in Tom Dispatch).

But the logistical tail cannot wag the political dog.  Pulling out might be hard, it might be dangerous, but the Withdrawal party just won big on November 4 over the War party.  It's as simple as that.  And remember, when the Iraqi Parliament ratifies the SOFA and the Strategic Framework, their copy of the agreement will read "The Withdrawal Accords."