All Wars Should End Like This

Surely even the most determined opponent of the Iraq War would agree that this is a far better way for a war to end than this, or this. It’s not quite over, of course, but there’s no reason for it to go on. No one in Iraq wants it to go on, and most importantly, no one is afraid:

One of trite bumper sticker slogans that became vogue in the last five years is that you can’t export democracy at gunpoint. From where I sit, it looks like we just have. Mind you, Iraq is one of those extraordinary cases — the only case I can envision today — in which direct foreign military intervention was an appropriate way to accomplish that. I submit that the intense unpopularity of the war in the terrible years of 2004-2008 was not so much that the casualties exceeded what our politicians expected before they voted to send the troops in. It was unpopular because the people could not see the outcome we see here. How else could this result have been achieved? Not without violence, certainly, and had it not been achieved, Iraq would be in a state of unrestrainable genocide, proliferation, and aggression.

To all of those who served and to their families, there are not enough occasions when the rest of us thank you for what you have done. Let this be one of those occasions. Thank you.