Do we call it a victory?

Listen to Dave’s commentary: Do we call it a victory?

Now that the American flag has been lowered in Baghdad, did we achieve President Bush’s goals?

“A country that is democratic, representative of all its people, at peace with its neighbors and able to defend itself.”

In London — Sabah al Mukhtar, chairman of the Arab Lawyers Association say we did the opposite.

“Iraq was a secular state, it now is a parliament which has more turbaned men in it than even in Iran. Iran is in control of Iraq.”

He says Iraq was better… under Saddam.

“It was a dictatorship, but it was a state. People could walk in the street and people could go to school. People didn’t get killed.”

War is complicated. And in this case, Victory is complicated.

So complicated, that President Obama, addressing the troops at Fort Bragg, didn’t call it victory:

“All the fighting, the dying, the bleeding, the building, the training, the partnering, all of that has led to this moment of success.”

He called it a moment of success. But there is one victory.

Most Americans now see the Iraq war as a mistake. President Obama himself saw it as a mistake. But yesterday, he was at Fort Bragg to welcome the troops home, and I don’t know of anybody who doesn’t share that sentiment.

As a country we are saying welcome home, and I think we mean it.

So whether or not Iraq is better off, at least here in America — we’ve gotten through a bad war without blaming the people who followed orders. It hasn’t always been that way. And there is at least some victory in that.

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