Perspective On Victory

The past few evenings I've been listening to parts of an interview (Link Here) that several Conservative newspaper reporters recently conducted with President Bush. In this, very long, conversation they discuss foreign affairs and cover everything from Iraq to North Korea to Syria. If you have the chance I'd definitely recommend listening to some of it - although I wouldn't recommend the whole thing unless you have a lot of time. It's a very good interview, and President Bush does an excellent job. He's obviously more comfortable in this setting than in his usual press conferences. The reason I bring all of this up is, as I was listening to this conversation, I was struck by one of the things the President said and wanted to elaborate on it.

While discussing Iraq and how to achieve victory, Bush pointed out that "if the absence of violence is victory" then we, nor anyone else, has a chance of winning - and he's right. I believe this is true because, simply put, violence isn't going to vanish from the face of the earth. Evil people will always be around, and will always be doing evil things; our job is to minimize the threat that the evil people pose to us. Consequently, our goal in Iraq is not to eliminate every single Islamic fundamentalist or completely end every last bit of violence. At first glance, this may sound strange, but try thinking of it another way. Today, there are several thousand Neo-Nazis in Germany; indeed, there is a Nazi (political) Party in the United States. Yet, one would hardly say that the U.S didn't win World War II or defeat Nazism. This same principle applies in Iraq.

The bottom line? Just because we don't create Utopia in Iraq doesn't mean we have failed. In fact, to attempt to do so would be failure in and of itself. So when you think about Iraq, and the important question of victory, keep some perspective and don't set the goalposts too far away.