what if we won a war and nobody noticed?

Nibras Kazimi examines the implications of our failing to claim victory in Iraq:

Senator Obama has some explaining to do: what does he mean by saying that he would end the war in Iraq? Whereas some aspects of the war seem to indicate that America is at war with itself as the Iraq debate rages in a charged partisan atmosphere, yet it is often the case that wars usually involve more than one side. So who is America at war with in Iraq? And is the enemy willing to end the war, and under what conditions?

Then there is another existential conundrum that Mr. Obama needs to contend with: how does one go about ending a war that, for all intents and purposes, is already over.

I hear my readers screaming: Whaddaya mean the war is over? Let Kazimi explain [e.a.]:

[The jihadists] thought they were building an empire in Iraq, the caliphate that Mr. bin Laden was always harping on about but never got the nerve to attempt. It was to be the realization of their dream, the same vision for which they launched the September 11, 2001, attacks and the mayhem and bloodshed in Iraq.

And now that they have been defeated in Iraq — anyone saying otherwise is either clueless or being purposely mendacious — America has in fact achieved something far greater than a military victory: America’s soldiers have smashed the nascent state of the caliphate; the dream is no more. This is a fate far worse than death for the jihadists, who enthusiastically embrace dying for their cause of resurrecting an Islamic empire as a noble act of martyrdom. Should Mr. bin Laden be killed or captured, then he would remain an undiminished hero in their eyes; while Americans may think that this would count as victory, the jihadists may simply shrug it off. However, seeing their state collapse in Iraq is their own nadir of demoralization and ideological defeat.

Kazimi also explains the ramifications of failing to declare defeat of the enemy [e.a.]:

The enemy has been defeated before it and its aims have been defined; now that’s quite an auspicious outcome. But it is also a dangerous one, since important lessons need to be learned before the enemy regroups and reengages on newer fronts.

The new fronts will be in Europe, Kazimi says. How does he know? Well, he reads the enemy’s writings. What a concept!

Read the whole thing.

And remember that the brilliant and persistent professor-blogger Engram has reached the same conclusion (via different means)—that the enemy [al Qaeda] has been defeated in Iraq.

Not that we’ll have an easy time convincing the American people of this basic fact—that we have achieved victory over Al Qaeda in Iraq (because, as the NYT notes today, America has turned inward, a fact reflected in the change in foreign news coverage in just the last three years [e.a.]:

Almost two-thirds of American newspapers publish less foreign news than they did just three years ago, nearly as many print less national news, and despite new demands on newsrooms like blogs and video, most of them have smaller news staffs, according to a new study. …

Sixty-four percent of the newspapers reported cutting the space given to foreign news over three years, making that the area that has suffered at the most papers as the business contracts. Only 10 percent of the editors said they considered foreign news “very essential” to their papers.

Really? Because we Americans are so special that we don’t need to know what’s happening elsewhere … Right?

Well maybe we’ll get “lucky” and the next really bad thing will happen far away, in Europe.

What? You’ve never heard of Europe?

Well, it’s the place that the Obama Messiah visited back in July 2008.

Remember?