The Credit Crunch

The title of this post has nothing whatsoever to do with any ongoing crisis in the financial markets.

But it has everything to do with credit claimed and blame assigned.

The polls have just closed in Iraq at the end of the first national election in the country since 2005. We all remember that one I think because it was the one characterized by the women proudly showing their blue ink stained finger.

"Victory has a thousand fathers," John F. Kennedy reportedly said, "but defeat is an orphan."

By that standard, George W. Bush, as Commander-in Chief, won the Iraq war.

Last month, Vice President Joe Biden proclaimed on CNN's "Larry King Live" that the peaceful transition to democracy and the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces "could be one of the great achievements of this administration."

I tried very hard to ignore Biden's comment because, well, he's Joe Biden, the “mouth that roared”. As critical as I may be of the Obama administration, holding it accountable for Biden's mouth seems to me to be grotesquely unfair.

But then, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs defended the vice president, suggesting that it was Obama who put Iraq "back together" and worked out bringing American troops home. More on that in a moment.

Then, just this week, Newsweek, which spent years ridiculing Bush, came out with a cover story titled "Victory at Last: The Emergence of a Democratic Iraq," in which the authors grudgingly and tentatively credited Bush with creating a democratic Iraq.

The Newsweek story might indeed be premature, as recent upticks in Iraq violence demonstrate that nobody is out of the woods just yet. As I heard today, on a syndicated radio program called "Voice to America which I listen to as often as I can, the collective wisdom seems to be that there may be a rough summer ahead if a new government can't be formed quickly.

Still, when the Obama administration starts taking credit for success in Iraq, you know things have changed for the better.

Now, of course, it is an obscene distortion of logic and even political decency for the White House to be taking credit for victory in Iraq.

Obama wouldn't be president today if he hadn't opposed the war. His opposition is what best distinguished him from Hillary Clinton in the primaries. Obama also opposed Bush's surge, which turned Iraq around.

He and Biden both claimed that it would actually make things worse. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence," then-Senator Obama declared in January 2007. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

When Gibbs went to bat for Biden, he said that Obama's achievement was "putting what was broken back together and getting our troops home, which we intend to do ..."

When it was pointed out that the proposed U.S. withdrawal had been set in the SOFA agreement. (Status of Forces Agreement) signed by the Bush administration, Gibbs claimed it was the "political pressure" of candidate Obama that made such an agreement possible.

Hillary might disagree with that. But not in public.

On its merits, this is all pathetic stuff. The same administration that blames all of its mistakes on problems it inherited, now wants to take credit for accomplishments it inherited.

Still, it's good news.

First and foremost, it's a sign that the war in Iraq, while costly and deservedly controversial, was not for nothing. Putting Iraq on a path to democracy and decency is a noble accomplishment for which Americans, of all parties, should be proud. Even if you think the war wasn't worth it or that it was unjustified, only the truly blinkered or black-hearted can be vexed by the fact that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone and the country is on the path to better days.

Second, it shows that America's victories aren't Republican or Democrat victories, but American victories. The same goes for its losses. At times it seemed that at least some opponents of the Iraq war wanted America to lose because they thought that was synonymous with Bush losing. Well, it doesn't work that way.

What most Americans care about is winning, or, more accurately, winning in a good cause. Public attitudes are still raw when it comes to the war, and for good reason.

But a generation from now, if Iraq is a stable, prosperous democracy, Americans will in all likelihood think the war was worth it, and that George W. Bush was right.

So, let’s at least give credit where it’s due …………