Has ‘Victory in Iraq’ Morphed Into the Unwinnable ‘War on Terror?’

Fear factor: As George Bush continues his Scary Terror tour of American Legion conventions and gatherings of military folk to put the fear of Allah into Americans everywhere, it’s interesting to note that it was only last November that he had ginned up something called the “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.” He unveiled it at the U.S. Naval academy in a speech that is reminiscent of his current warlord warblings except for its focus on victory as opposed to a neverending slog through an ever deepening crisis in the Middle East.

On Nov. 30, 2005, Bush described the enemy in Iraq this way:

The terrorists in Iraq share the same ideology as the terrorists who struck the United States on September the 11th. Those terrorists share the same ideology with those who blew up commuters in London and Madrid, murdered tourists in Bali, workers in Riyadh and guests at a wedding in Amman, Jordan. Just last week they massacred Iraqi children and their parents at a toy giveaway outside an Iraqi hospital.

This is an enemy without conscience, and they cannot be appeased. If we’re not fighting and destroying this enemy in Iraq, they would not be idle. They would be plotting and killing Americans across the world and within our own borders. By fighting these terrorists in Iraq, Americans in uniform are defeating a direct threat to the American people.

Yesterday, in his “War on Terror” speech, Bush described them this way:

The terrorists who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001, are men without conscience — but they’re not madmen. They kill in the name of a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs that are evil, but not insane. These al Qaeda terrorists and those who share their ideology are violent Sunni extremists. They’re driven by a radical and perverted vision of Islam that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women and children in the pursuit of political power. They hope to establish a violent political utopia across the Middle East, which they call a “Caliphate” — where all would be ruled according to their hateful ideology. Osama bin Laden has called the 9/11 attacks — in his words — “a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the Righteous… [Caliphate].”

This caliphate would be a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. We know this because al Qaeda has told us. About two months ago, the terrorist Zawahiri — he’s al Qaeda’s second in command — declared that al Qaeda intends to impose its rule in “every land that was a home for Islam, from [Spain] to Iraq. He went on to say, “The whole world is an open field for us.”

Is it me, or is Bush saying the same thing again? And it’s interesting to note that earlier versions of both of these “national strategies” were released in 2003 and have been updated annually. So what is it? the War on Terror or Victory in Iraq? According to an article today in the Boston Globe, both themes are defining Congress’ approach to the last full month of law-making until December as well as the midterms this fall:

… the Republicans have shelved high-profile bills on immigration and lobbying and ethics reforms for a streamlined agenda emphasizing domestic security.

Republican leaders in the House and Senate are planning votes this month on legislation concerning Pentagon spending, port security, bioterrorism, Bush’s controversial warrantless wiretapping program , and military tribunals for terror suspects. The goal: allowing the GOP to tout its credentials in fighting the threat of terrorism.

“The bottom line is that there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11, and that is the ultimate measure of success,” said Senate majority leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican. “Democrats have urged retreat from Iraq, and, as we all know, that has become the central front in this war on terror.”

But Democrats will argue that Bush and his allies in Congress have made the country less safe, mainly by bogging down the military in Iraq. They intend to hold an unusual no-confidence vote on the president’s war conduct and Rumsfeld’s leadership this week, and want the Pentagon to issue quarterly reports on the “state of civil war” in Iraq.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who made the proposal, said those assessments will help determine the rules of engagement for US troops.

“If [Iraq] is civil war, what possibly is our mission?” said Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat. “As long as the administration continues to deny the plain truth [about the war], America will be behind the curve and unable to adjust to the current realities on the ground.”

So the Dems are trying to talk tough and characterize the war in Iraq as both misguided and unnecessary, while the GOP touts the fact that there has been no large-scale terrorist attack on U.S. soil in five years and that the war in Iraq was not only justified, but is under control, despite that fact that the country seems to be sliding toward civil war. The big question facing both parties is whether the public buys either position. So let’s go to the polls:

A Zogby America telephone poll of 1,014 likely voters conducted over Labor Day weekend finds members of the two parties diametrically opposed on key issues, while independents line up more closely to Democratic viewpoints.

In one key measurement in the survey, a 58 percent majority says the Iraq War has not been worth the loss of American lives, while 36 percent say it has. But the partisan breakdown shows a very different story. Among Republicans, 58 percent say the war has been worth the cost in lives, while among Democrats, just 20 percent hold this view-a number that improves to 28 percent among independents.

The question of whether the war has been worth the loss of American lives finds stark differences on a number of fronts — respondents aged 30 to 49 are much more inclined to believe the war worth the cost than their peers in other groups, although men and women see eye-to-eye on the question. Residents of large cities are least likely to believe the war worth its costs, while small-city residents are most likely to believe the war’s human costs justified.

The division is starker, though, on the question of whether expanding the War on Terror by invading Iraq was the right decision. There, 49 percent say the invasion was the right decision, while 50 percent disagree. While the nation is completely split on the question, there is a clear partisan component to those views, with 82 percent of Republicans saying the decision was the right one, while 77 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of independents disagree.

Half of American voters (50 percent) say there is no link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 terror attacks, while 46 percent believe there is a connection. However, just 37 percent of respondents in the poll agreed that Saddam was connected to the attacks and that the Iraq War was justified as retribution for his involvement, while 48 percent believed that there is no connection between Saddam and 9/11 and the Iraq War has diverted America’s attention from the War on Terror.

The Zogby numbers were somewhat confirmed by a CNN poll, which showed that the message Democrats hammered on during the 2004 elections may have finally sunk in with more Americans: Fifty-three percent of a half-sample told pollsters the war in Iraq had no relation to the broader war on terror, while just 45 percent considered the two endeavors to be one and the same.

Neither poll seems definitive in sussing out whether Americans believe we are fighting a war on terror or are fighting a war for victory in Iraq or whether both wars are really just one war. But one thing is dead certain — as of today, 2,657 U.S. military personnel have been killed in Iraq and more than 20,000 wounded, not counting scores of thousands of dead and wounded Iraqi soldiers and civilians.

So it really doesn’t matter whether the war is on terror or on insurgents, the killing just needs to stop. Now.

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