On March 20, 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom brought the U.S. military across the Kuwait border and into Iraq, marking the beginning of a combat that would claim 4,400 American soldiers’ lives and over 70,000 Iraqi casualties.
Tuesday night, President Barack Obama declared the Iraq combat mission over. And while his Oval Office address certainly picked up aesthetic momentum near the end, Obama left those of us who tuned in a little uninspired at a time that should have been more of a triumphant declaration than sigh of exhaust.
We certainly don’t want another grandiose spectacle from an aircraft carrier, but yesterday’s address felt like a regurgitation of everything we’ve been hearing since the mission was “accomplished” in October 2003. We would love to see our country moving on from the Iraq war, and slowly but surely we’ve seen progress, but ultimately it’s hard to see how this instance of an end is any clearer cut than the last.
Maybe our malaise comes from knowing that there are still 50,000 troops over there. Or that it’s not going to be until next August that the “transition” from tricycle to bicycle begins for the Iraqi government. Or maybe we’re over the “combat” and more worried about the condition we leave Iraq in — which will be addressed over the next year as the government begins its mission to get Iraq back on its feet, figuratively speaking.
Even the question as to if Obama would give his predecessor George W. Bush a nod and amend their opposing views on the mission was side-stepped in the speech. Obama commended where Bush’s heart was at and his love of country, yet this generic acknowledgment will no doubt be ignored given that this is also nothing new.
Like most of the dialogue on this war, there was just something lacking in Obama’s address. Perhaps the expectation was too high — by wanting to hear the verbose chorus of “hope” and “positive reinforcement” we have come to be enamored with by our nation’s leader, or his speech writer at least. Without any lines to read between, Obama is almost insulting the American people by not giving us anything to take from the end of something that has existed for a third of the average college student’s life.
So as Obama encourages the nation to “turn the page,” we must ask what kind of chapter of history we’re heading into. Maybe asking Obama to predict the future is a little too naïve of a demand, but we need to know how tomorrow will really differ from yesterday. Although our president has exhausted himself with this rude inheritance, we can only hope he’s got what it takes to get us through the last year of this “chapter in history.”
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