What IS the goal in Iraq?

I've been wondering about this for a while now. Recently, there were rumors circulating that President Bush was about to change his strategy in Iraq. However, according to an article yesterday and Bush's own words, that is not the case. According to Bush, "victory" has always been our goal in Iraq and always will be. Well, that's certainly good to know. I was worried that Bush wanted "defeat" to be our goal. I mean, really, why are so many people enamored of such enormously stupid things coming out of his mouth?

So, my question is: What is the actual goal of our troops in Iraq? It's hard to know, as the rationale for invading Iraq and staying in Iraq has changed repeatedly. If victory is the goal, what are the benchmarks by which we decide whether we have achieved that goal? There is no government to surrender to us nor specific people who must be captured or killed. Rather, there is a giant mess in Iraq.

Most likely, if this question were to be asked of Bush, he would say "victory over the terrorists", but such an answer is, as all should realize by now, incredibly misleading. The "terrorists" are but one group among several in Iraq engaging in violence, unless of course "terrorists" include anyone killing other people in Iraq. However, if we define them that way, then we have to acknowledge that most of them pose no threat to the U.S. (i.e. unlike al-Qaeda). Of course, this is the problem with the misuse and overuse of the word "terrorist". Most of the fighting in Iraq is being committed by Sunni and Shiite factions, aimed primarily at each other's populations. The non-Iraqi "terrorists" are just another group thrown into the mix. So, who precisely do we need to be "victorious" over and how do we know when we've done that?

The article goes on to mention that Bush says that commanders are always changing things on the ground to reflect the situation in Iraq. I assume he means that tactics change, but the larger question is what is our strategy? Yeah, I get that our troops change their tactics for fighting enemy combatants, but it's not clear what our overall strategy is to achieve our goal (if we knew what that goal was). Ostensibly, it's to get Iraqi forces to take over for our troops, but the past few months have demonstrated (for the umpteenth time) that Iraqi troops are in no position to do that. In fact, we have retreated from the Anbar province (main Sunni stronghold) and have focused on the previously calm (relatively speaking) Baghdad. Recent news indicates that Moqtada al-Sadr's militia is becoming active again, in fact briefly taking over a town that the Brits recently turned over to the Iraqis. George Will, in his continuing criticism of Iraq, points out the need for a government that these Iraqi forces are connected to. Quite frankly, a government without its own forces to govern its land is a government in name only, much like the exiled government of Somalia.

The lack of a government raises yet another issue. One of our goals in Iraq was to create a democracy. Sure, we've gotten people to vote, but that doesn't exactly make a democracy if the government can't govern. So, what are we left with? Our troops continue to defend a government that appears to have little likelihood of ever being able to govern.

So, Mr. Bush, what is our strategy in Iraq? Troops keep dying and getting injured, yet we have no realistic achievable goal or a strategy to reach such a goal. The problem, in my opinion, is that these goals set by the Administration have never been truly achievable. Their probability of being achieved has always depended less on what we do and more on what others choose to do. One of the most important life lessons anyone can learn is that the only person we can control is ourselves. We cannot control others' decisions or behaviors. This is important in relationships, from the romantic to the platonic to the foreign country-to-country relationships. Yet, our goals and strategies in Iraq have always depended on the hope and wishful thinking that Iraqis themselves would choose to do "A" over "B" and "X" over "Y". Our military can accomplish military aims, but this war in Iraq has always set aims far beyond what our military can accomplish -- not because our military is lacking in some way but because these aims have never been within our control.