Another Success in Iraq

Andy McCarthy at the Corner tells us:

SSSSHHHHHHH … Don’t Tell Anyone: Al Qaeda Has Been Routed in Baghdad

…

The Newspaper of Record has the story today … on page A-19.

… And even there, the Times can’t bring itself to say we won. The report is headlined, “Militant Group Is Out of Baghdad, U.S. Says.” They left — not we kicked their ass out.

There’s much whining about the NY Times perfidy here… but here’s my take on this little post by Andy McCarthy. See, I have little doubt that Al Qaeda has been routed in Baghdad. Which means that either the violence has ended in Baghdad, or there are a lot of folks engaging in violence that are not Al Qaeda. Since the violence has not ended in Baghdad… clearly there are a lot of non-AQ people engaging in violence. (This should surprise nobody.)

So now we’re at a classic case of mission drift. The original goal was to eliminate Saddam and get rid of WMDs. Mission accomplished. Then there was talk of promoting democracy. Judging by the purple fingers of Republican voters back in 2004, that also occurred. Getting rid of Al Qaeda was another. That’s done.

So when the heck can we pull out? What else is there?