Iraq: 'Mission Accomplished'?

That depends on what the mission was...

He leaves out Pakistan and Saudia Arabia.

Two years ago Sunday, in a splashy display of his role as commander-in-chief, George W. Bush landed on board the USS Lincoln in the co-pilot's seat of a Navy S-3B Viking. Standing amid a sea of his Praetorians – against the backdrop of a huge banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" – our president had a distinctly Napoleonic air about him as he exuberantly proclaimed:

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country."

As violence surges in "liberated" Iraq, auguring all-out civil war, the memory of this breast-beating moment – not to mention that unfortunate banner – mocks us across the years, haunting the families and friends of the fallen, Iraqis as well as Americans. Bush blithered on: "The tyrant," he intoned, "has fallen" – yes, and as a government of Shi'ite fundamentalists takes the helm, a new tyranny arises to take his place, put there by U.S. force of arms. With the liar, embezzler, and Iranian double agent Ahmed Chalabi installed as Iraq's oil minister, it is fair to ask: what is the nature of this "mission" we are supposed to have "accomplished"?

In his USS Lincoln speech, the president toted up our achievements thus far, claiming that we fought a war "for the peace of the world" – yet today the specter of a wider war looms over the entire Middle East, threatening to engulf Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, and even Egypt in a regional conflagration.

Raimondo