What is "winning" in Iraq?

Question

Try to answer without partisan sarcasm. I'm curious what people really believe "victory" would look like. What is it that we're trying to do, and how will we know when it is done?

Jon B: Follow-up question for you: What action on the part of the iraqi people tells you that we're headed toward a stable government in Iraq?

Answer 1

we can't win this war..it's a religious war..can't be done

Answer 2

We won the war the day saddam's government fell. Whatever we are doing there now has nothing to do with winning a war. The only fighting going on now over there is taking place because we are building permanent military bases and have no intention of ever leaving. The only way the fighting will ever stop there is for us to leave.

If war in the middle east was necessary, Iran was the only legitimate target since they have been attacking us and our allies since the 60's or 70's. They are much closer to nukes than saddam could have ever gotten considering the box we had him in. If we had gone to Iran instead, iraq might have worked itself out. Since we didn't, we now have a giant Iran with complete dominance over that region and a terror network so sophisticated that it successfully smuggles drugs and terrorists into the U.S through the Texas border at the same time it carries out acts in several other countries.

We have emboldened terrorists with our inability to create a peaceful democracy in Iraq and with our unwillingness to secure our own borders. Like it or not, we will see fighting in our own streets soon and I am beginning to think that there are some in our government who want it that way.

There can be no true victory now.

Answer 3

I don't believe anyone, outside the President and his talk radio buddies, truly believes we can win or achieve a victory. I think the best case would be to have a country where Al-Qaeda does not thrive. That may mean someones troops other than Iraq's will be there a very long time.

Answer 4

Senior Republicans call on Bush to submit a new argument for the war in September, when Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, is scheduled to deliver a much-awaited report on progress toward securing Baghdad with recent boost of 30,000 more U.S. troops.

On Thursday, Warner said Iraq's government was "not providing leadership worthy of the considerable sacrifice of our forces and this has to change immediately."

Answer 5

1.catching the people that caused 9/11...ooh wait a minute, they aren't in Iraq....
2.oh yeah ...finding Saddam's WMDs...oooh wait those aren't there either
3.removing Saddam....done victory accomplish...what, that wasn't victory??
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
4. our troops and tax dollars have to stay until democracy established?
5.OK OK establish a democracy...done! can our troops leave now?
NO??!
6. oh so now we have to provide security and train them to protect their own democracy, until they write and pass the "divy up the oil law".
why aren't they protecting their own democracy?
Oooh yeah thats right, they are too busy killing each other and our troops.
6.well at least we can provide security long enough to allow them to pass the "divy up the oil" law.
7. "Divy up the oil" law passed
VICTORY troops can come home!

8. oops nope sorry an oil rig got blown up have to rebuild it and keep it secure. [repeat #8]
9. repeat #8 several more times, turn country over to Iranian loyalists

doesn't sound like much of a victory, but it is probably what will happen.

Answer 6

"Winning'' is essentially losing. The US may gain another Mid-East puppet gov't, but it will lose the trust and credibility of the general population. The problem is that you cannot win in a "war of ideas" on a physical battlefield. There will never be a "defeat" of radical Islam. You can only marginalize it (like we do with home-grown hate groups), and the only way of accomplishing that is to offer the population better ideas than those of the extremists.

Answer 7

Victory: The government stabilized, buildings rebuilt, hospitals rebuilt and in operation, a flourishing economy on par with Japan and Germany, schools and universities, farms with amber waves of grain....Uh, I woke up.

Maybe just leaving with our pants not falling down would be a victory.

Answer 8

I really can't answer this without at least a tinge partisan sarcasm. Here's my answer:

Leaving Iraq at least as stable as it was before we got there.

Answer 9

We have already had lots of victory.

1. Saddam is gone
2. They have had multiple free elections.
3. Iraq is the first freely elected government in any Arab nation.

We need to win the peace there. We are doing the job, but our president is too clueless as to how to fight the PR war.

Answer 10

Winning in Iraqi means many things.Freedom for Iraqi people and to kill terrorist.I think that's impossible to do!We are letting our own men die for no reason.Bush knows where in deep but he is to stubborn to admit that he was wrong.

Answer 11

I expect it would be stabilizing and securing Iraq so that its people could walk down the streets without being murdered by Baathist thugs or suicidal religious lunatics. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of either in Iraq.