We Still Lack Metrics

Harry Reid is catching flac for saying we’ve lost the war in Iraq (see, e.g., link and a thousand others). I think the Senator is wrong, but for the opposite reason. I still hang with those who say the problem is that we’ve won (cf. link, link, link). I’m talking not mere cosmetics, the Aiken maneuver (“declare victory and bring the troops home”). This is something far more substantive: fact is, we’ve accomplished everything we set out to do: Saddam is gone, we have, ahem, settled the WMD question, and we’ve structured a free election (we’ve even got a new oil law).

The administration has suckered us into believing that there is a reason for our continued presence, but nobody can articulate what that reason what might be—how we will know victory when we see it. In the words of a statesman of former times, “we lack metrics.” Sooner we get some, sooner we will be able to get on with our lives: rebuilding the army, supporting the troops and, oh yes, fighting the war on terror. In the words of Oliver Cromwell, echoed by everyone whose political patience was ever tested past enduranace,: “In the name of God, go!.”

[For a less flippant analysis on the same lines, go here.]