Stable, Sovereign, Prosperous, Self-Reliant Posted by Adam Blickstein

Spencer flags an important quote from Gen. Ray Odierno buried in a Christian Science Monitor article about reducing American reliance on security contractors in Iraq:

"This initiative supports our desired end state of a stable, sovereign, and prosperous Iraq," General Odierno wrote in a directive dated Jan. 31. "It's the right thing to do, so let's move out."

Notice the date of the directive, January 31. Now look at what Obama said in his speech last Friday on withdrawing American forces from Iraq:

This strategy is grounded in a clear and achievable goal shared by the Iraqi people and the American people: an Iraq that is sovereign, stable, and self-reliant.

Ilan noted the shift in tone and rhetoric between Obama's stated goals and those espoused by Bush, whose central pillar was "helping the people of Iraq establish a democracy in the heart of the Middle East." But it is striking that almost a month before Obama's speech that Odierno used nearly the same language as Obama when describing the desired end state in Iraq.

As recently as December 2008, Bush still clung on to the ideal of a democratic Iraq: "There is hope in the eyes of Iraqis' young. This is a future of what we've been fighting for -- a strong and capable democratic Iraq."  This starkly conrasted with what General Petraeus said in April 2008 while he still was commander of troops in Iraq: "We're not after the Holy Grail in Iraq, we're not after Jeffersonian democracy."

A sense of realism has blanketed the idealism of democracy promotion in Iraq in both the political and military circles. And clearly, it's refreshing to finally see both the military commanders and the Commander-in-Chief on the same page whe it comes to Iraq's future.

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