Victory was defined before the war began and summarized the day it started.
Her is one clip from that day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DvIDuk1498
from the speech said:
"This campaign may take longer, and be more difficult than some predict, and helping Iraqis create a united, stable, and free country will require our sustained commitment."
"We have no ambitions in Iraq except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to it's own people."
That was on the day Operation Iraqi Freedom began. The stated goals haven't changed. Here is what the White House has as the goals today, and an outline of the stradegy for achieving them.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/iraq_strategy_nov2005.html
VICTORY IN IRAQ IS A VITAL U.S. INTEREST
The war on terrorism is the defining challenge of our generation, just as the struggle against communism and fascism were challenges of the generations before. As with those earlier struggles, the United States is fully committed to meeting this challenge. We will do everything it takes to win.
Prevailing in Iraq will help us win the war on terror.
The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror.
Osama Bin Laden has declared that the "third world war...is raging" in Iraq, and it will end there, in "either victory and glory, or misery and humiliation."
Bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has declared Iraq to be "the place for the greatest battle," where he hopes to "expel the Americans" and then spread "the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq."
Al Qaida in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has openly declared that "we fight today in Iraq, and tomorrow in the Land of the Two Holy Places, and after there the west."
As the terrorists themselves recognize, the outcome in Iraq -- success or failure -- is critical to the outcome in the broader war on terrorism.
What happens in Iraq will influence the fate of the Middle East for generations to come, with a profound impact on our own national security.
Ceding ground to terrorists in one of the world's most strategic regions will threaten the world's economy and America's security, growth, and prosperity, for decades to come.
An emerging democracy in Iraq will change the regional status quo that for decades has bred alienation and spawned the transnational terrorism that targets us today.
The terrorists' perverse ideology is countered by the advance of freedom and the recognition that all people have the right to live under democracy and the rule of law, free from oppression and fear, with hope and optimism for the future.
Despite much effort to cloud the issue, the goal has been, and is still, Iraqi Freedom and other goals tied to that such as ousting Sadaam and securing the WMDs that have since been found not to be there (
alot of people got that one wrong).
Initially the effort was made with the whack-a-mole aproach. Did NOT go well to say the least. General Petraeus however has changed that and done so very successfully.
The cliche' is something like 'those people CAN'T be peacefull. That the will kill each other regardless.
The thing Americans have a hard time getting their heads around is that they EXPECT injustice. We have lived in an environment of rights and an expectation of justice. We get outraged when we perceive a violation of our rights or a miscarriage in justice. It is a part of our national psyche.
People in that region EXPECT INJUSTICE. And that breeds resentment and eventually violence in any people. It's a condition that generation after generation has had proven to them. It's manipulated by their leaders to keep their heads down. The leaders point outside the country to keep that resentment and violence directed away from them.
Iraqis have long lived in a condition of that expectation of injustice. They have been severely treated should anyones head pop up. Now, for the first time in a very long time, there is starting an expectation that they will get to live how they choose. The Petraeus successes aren't borne from overwhelming US military domination, they are borne of the change in the perspective of the Iraqis. The promise made was that they could live how they want to live. Be Sunni, Shiite, etc. and the US wasn't going to force that to change. The only condition was that they also allowed their neighbors the same liberty to live how they wanted to live. Nobody will kill you for how you want to live, and no killing your neighbor for how they want to live. The US military would be their to protect that liberty should they be attacked. As that promise was consistently kept, the Iraqi people became emboldened to stand up for themselves.
This took like wildfire as liberty does among human beings. It came to the point that Iraqis drove out insurgents from their communities with the confidence that the US military was now perceived as an ally, not an adversary. The expectation of justice started as the promise was kept.
The local to central approach worked, and is STILL working very well. The change has been dramatic. The Shiites and Sunnis passed a Fatwa (Muslim 'law') against 'the rule of the gun' and made gaining power via violence a violation of sharia law. That speaks volumes about the effect of liberty of people accustomed to expecting injustice.
The promise needs to be kept. Breaking it will feed that expectation of injustice innate to that culture and result in a resentment that's violence can be pointed in any direction the next charismatic leader points it. KEEP the promise and those people will fight any threat to their new sense of justice.
The people of that region aren't incapable of being peaceful, rather they are expecting injustice and are positioning themselves to survive it. A new sense of expectation of justice will do more to reduce the threats from that region then carpet bombing ever could. That is has been manifesting in Iraq. The promise kept is what is at stake.
Look into what is causing the changes that are taking place in Iraq to come about. Petraeus took this approach vs. Abizaid's whack-a-mole approach. Petraeus is due soon for another report to Congress. Let's hope more attention gets paid this time. His approach has really been brilliant. If one really checks it out it's clear that the human desire for liberty is working in Iraq.
NEWS.