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WIN, LOSE, OR DRAW. The Politico had a piece about various Democrats' wary responses to queries about Harry Reid's (decontextualized) "the war is lost" line. John Edwards said this:
"I think it depends entirely on what your definition of 'lost' means. That sounded familiar, didn't it?" former senator John Edwards, a Democratic presidential candidate, said to laughter on Ed Schultz's radio talk show Monday. "What I mean is, I don't think there is winning or losing in Iraq. There is certainly no military victory if it's used in that regard. The only way there can be security and peace on the ground in Iraq is for there to be a political solution."To which, over at The Plank, Mike Crowley snarked "Thanks for clearing that up ..." OK, so Edwards is being convoluted here, but isn't he also basically correct? On the one hand, we've lost any straightforward strategic rationale for what our goals are supposed to be in Iraq and what methods would be best for attaining those goals, and thus it really is reductive to the point of unhelpful to boil things down to win/lose questions. On the other hand, to find ourselves in this very predicament, of course, already means that the U.S. has "lost" whatever war it intended to win in Iraq, as Reid said. Meanwhile, as everyone knows and Edwards says in the quote above, the only hope for Iraq is, indeed, a political solution forged by the actual Iraqi factions fighting. I think Peter Beinart was right to call Reid's statement a gaffe in the Kinsley sense -- a politician telling the truth.
--Sam Rosenfeld
