Senator Jon Tester wants to proclaim victory in Iraq as a precedent to a withdrawal of our troops. “Victory” being defined, I suspect, as displacing Saddam Hussein’s government and replacing it with a representative government that operates on democratic principles. That this government may quickly descends into a civil war is, Senator Tester says (or rather implies), not our problem. We gave them a shot and helped them stand up; whether they stay standing or not is up to them. I don’t know about that. I would have included capturing Iraq into the long-term economic and strategic orbit of the United States are a condition of victory, too.
