Editorial: Again, rush into war had dubious outcome

President Barack Obama’s declaration Tuesday night that “the American combat mission in Iraq has ended” sounds hauntingly like what his predecessor said more than seven years ago from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln – that our “major combat operations” in Iraq had ended.

Obama’s assurance this week deserves the same skepticism that President George W. Bush received in May 2003. Especially with 50,000 American troops scheduled to remain in Iraq until sometime next year. Vigorous fighting continues in Afghanistan, a part of the world where borders stand for little and nationalism counts less than tribes, sects and dogma.

What have we accomplished in those seven years? More importantly, what have we learned?

Saddam Hussein is gone, which is a good thing, but the region remains tense and unstable. Osama bin Laden is at large, assuming he’s alive, yet the goal of apprehending him has disappeared from the national conversation.

The wars that trouble the world today are not like the wars that defined the middle of the 20th century. Back then, military alliances were built around shared values and defined objectives, and wars were bracketed between declarations and surrenders, conducted to achieve clear outcomes and sealed with the formality of truces and treaties.

In the Middle East, presidents and prime ministers have given way largely to warlords and insurgents under conditions that don’t produce victory, defeat or any other measure of finality.

Conflict in the Middle East is easy to slip into but dauntingly difficult to escape. That’s not going to end anytime soon, and we need to remember that sending our uniformed troops there will cost dearly in life, limb and money. The past seven years in Iraq have added up to nearly 4,500 American service people killed, more than 30,000 wounded and three-quarters of a trillion dollars spent.

We became entangled in this engagement because we thought of Sept. 11 as Pearl Harbor and we expected Iraqis to welcome us a liberators as the occupied French had done in World War II.

It is natural for Americans to react with anger and resolution when the homeland is attacked. It is moving to see patriotic young men and women step forward in its defense. But the lessons of Vietnam and Iraq have shown us that rushing emotionally into war against ill-defined enemies can be a wasteful trap.

Bush contended America was a tempting target for terrorists because they detest the values we stand for. He’s probably at least partly right. But when threats arrive in a complicated world, we must pause long enough to examine the stakes and ask ourselves if we will demonstrate those values more effectively as an agent of war or a broker of peace.