No end but victory

Fast food, five-second sound bites and 30-second ads are all symptoms of an American culture that demands things happen immediately and without subtlety. When given a choice between two storylines, one of gradual change with ambiguous progress and the other of spectacular failure, our culture is programmed to see the failure.

Americans don't like open-ended wars because we have trouble detaching ourselves from the clarity of the now and seeing the complexity of the big picture. In most American conflicts, fatigue sets in around the third year, which is where we are today in Iraq. But if we could look beyond the daily grind, our opinion of this war might be quite different.

We cannot look beyond today because our leaders haven't given us reason to. Like the boy who cried wolf, President Bush has screamed falsely, giving us illusory promises of instant gratification that have made us numb to a reality of incremental success. To laud this success is not the same as agreeing with our strategy in Iraq; one can be for American victory without being for the President.

The President's performance suggests that, though he recognizes the stakes in Iraq, he is incapable of competent follow-through. It was criminally negligent not to plan for unrest after Saddam. This casual disregard for foresight made a difficult exercise in nation-building even more complicated. The President's handling of this war has been pathetic, which is unfortunate considering we can't afford to lose.

If we were to immediately withdraw from Iraq, the country would collapse. The central government would be unable to maintain order because it has only 28,000 effective soldiers. This would not prevent Moqtada al-Sadr and his Iranian backers from seceding, or prevent Abu Musab al-Zarqawi from establishing a Taliban on the Euphrates, or stop the Kurds from officially declaring independence. And those 28,000 troops would not be enough to prevent a bloodbath in Baghdad. To withdraw would be disastrous for Iraq and for America.

We committed ourselves to victory in Iraq in March 2003. Eventually we will leave, but withdrawal now would be defeat. We can only leave after victory. Our motives for departure matter, and it is important to remember that we are making progress.

Pessimism about Iraq is largely a result of media fixation on the American body count. Each of these deaths is tragic and the number — 2,100 — is heartbreaking. But the fact that many of America's finest have been killed is not by itself proof that we are losing the campaign.

The problem with focusing on our body count is that it equates triumph with the casualty roll. If this is true and the body count is the measure of our success, then we would be decisively defeating the insurgency. The insurgents' death toll is somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000, 10 to 25 times our own.

But the body count is not ultimately the principal indicator. Just as North Vietnamese and Vietcong casualties were not signs we were winning in Vietnam, American casualties in Iraq are not by themselves indicative of failure.

The security situation is bad today, but it is unquestionably showing signs of improvement. A year ago, when the United States stormed Fallujah, only about one-sixth of the coalition combat troops were Iraqi. This November, when an offensive was launched in Husayba, the proportion was near 30 percent. Building a modern army and creating a critical mass of junior and noncommissioned officers takes time. An ever-increasing number of Iraqi units have reached acceptable levels of performance, and eventually the Iraqis will not need us. To leave before then would be irresponsible at best.

The political situation is also improving. In 2003 there was no political system, only tyrannical fascism. Today, there is a democratically elected government and popularly-approved constitution. Fresh elections are on the horizon. It is difficult to see this change because it takes place, not in leaps and bounds, but through slow, steady movement.

Iraq is the tortoise, not the hare. When one compares today's Iraq to 2003's, improvement is visible. To keep and expand this progress requires the will to stomach tragedy in the pursuit of victory. If we can do that, we can win; if not, 2,100 American heroes will have died for nothing. If we accept an end other than victory, we will defeat ourselves. Barry Caro is a freshman from White Plains, N.Y. He can be reached at bcaro@princeton.edu.