The Foreign Service Journal, February 2007

because it would dishearten our friends and embolden our enemies. The real reason they can’t leave is because Bush has to first find some- thing, anything, that he can label a success. Victory is essential, not because accepting that we can’t impose our will anywhere we want would be a blow to our self-image as a superpower. It is indispensable because it would affect historians’ assessments. Without “victory” those assess- ments will focus on how America got stuck in the quag- mire that Iraq has become. Defeat can’t be blamed on the media or liberals, as Henry Kissinger now tries to do with Vietnam. For after nearly four years of effort, there is no way forward. Bush was unintentionally on the mark when he stood next to Iraqi Prime Minister Malaki in Amman last November and said, “This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all.” There will be no graceful exit from Iraq because the sectarian divide has become too deep, the corrupting influence of oil revenue too strong, and the intervention of neighboring states too persistent and destructive. Bush can’t heal the divide or end the corruption. And he has precluded direct con- tact with Syria and Iran despite the recommendations of the Baker- Hamilton Commission and others. Using surrogate interlocutors won’t work because Syria and Iran won’t stop interfering in Iraq until they are convinced that Washington has lost its interest in regime change in Damascus and Tehran. A Black-and-White World That can’t happen without a huge shift in the way the administration describes U.S. goals. But having con- structed a black-and-white world to satisfy his most faith- F O C U S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 31 Democracy became the default rationale for the war even though this administration places no more emphasis on it than its predecessors did.