Primeiro Diogo; depois o Wall Street Journal...

POR REINALDO AZEVEDO

“Pouco importa o que aconteça em novembro, a guerra no Iraque não chegará ao fim por intermédio de Barack Obama ou de John McCain. A guerra no Iraque acabou. Os Estados Unidos venceram.”

Não é um trecho da coluna de Diogo Mainardi na VEJA desta semana, que chegou aos leitores na madrugada do dia 3. Cito o artigo de Bret Stephens — “Minha aposta com Francis Fukuyama” — no Wall Street Journal, publicado no dia 5. A seção em que escreve se chama “Visão Global” — aquela que muitos no Brasil, e até nos EUA, se negam a ter em relação ao tema.

Diogo na VEJA desta semana, se é que alguém não leu: “A guerra no Iraque acabou. (...) A campanha presidencial americana (...) também reflete um distanciamento amalucado da realidade. A plataforma dos candidatos para a guerra no Iraque baseou-se no cenário de um ano atrás. Barack Obama apostou numa derrota americana e prometeu fugir em disparada. John McCain apostou numa batalha longa e sangrenta, perfeita para alguém com seu passado militar.”

É isso aí.

O artigo:
GLOBAL VIEW
By BRET STEPHENS

My Bet With Francis Fukuyama
August 5, 2008; Page A17
The Wall Street Journal

No matter what happens in November, the war in Iraq will not be brought to an end by either Barack Obama or John McCain. The war in Iraq is over. We've
won.

Exhibit A for my claim: Francis Fukuyama has agreed to write me a check for $100.

In March 2006, I wrote a blistering review of "America at the Crossroads," Mr. Fukuyama's sensational repudiation both of the war in Iraq as well as the neoconservative movement of which he was once a leading light.

There followed between us an exchange of emails, in which Mr. Fukuyama pointed to various pieces he had published prior to the war indicating some concerns about how the U.S. would go in, and some foreboding about what might follow. He also mentioned a $100 bet he had made in May 2003 with a
friend -- a supporter of the war -- that Iraq would be a mess five years after the invasion, the definition of a mess being "you'd know one if you saw it." We agreed to make the same bet.

I nearly forgot about the bet until last Friday, when the Washington Post reported U.S. combat fatalities in Iraq for the month of July. The total
came to five. Six other soldiers were killed in noncombat situations.

The rate of combat fatalities may again inch higher. For all the progress made in the last year, Iraq remains a dangerous (if no longer terrifying)place. But to speak of Iraq as a "war" no longer accurately characterizes
the nature of the situation: For purposes of comparison, U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam in 1971, when America's involvement was winding down and U.S.
troop levels stood roughly where they are today in Iraq, averaged 115 a
month.

Speaking of "war" also confuses our understanding of what the U.S. should do next. Put simply, and pace Barack Obama, "getting out of Iraq" and "ending the war" are no longer synonymous.

With this in mind, I wrote Mr. Fukuyama to suggest that he owed me $100. He conceded, albeit strictly on "the narrow terms" of the bet itself.

Mr. Fukuyama insists, however, that he has been vindicated on the broader issue: "We've spent a trillion or so dollars, 30,000 dead or wounded, a large loss in international influence and prestige, all for the sake of
disarming a country with no WMDs."

He adds that "my concern right from the beginning was that the war wouldn't be worth the effort it would require, and that the American people don't have a good record in supporting long, costly struggles in developing
countries." And he asks for "public recognition" that he was no latecomer to
opposing the war.

I'll grant that Mr. Fukuyama had decided the war was a mistake -- if only in a whisper -- before it was begun. Where does that leave us now? Perhaps it's worth considering what we have gained now that Iraq looks like a
winner.

Here's a partial list: Saddam is dead. Had he remained in power, we would likely still believe he had WMD. He would have been sitting on an oil bonanza priced at $140 a barrel. He would almost certainly have broken free from an already crumbling sanctions regime. The U.S. would be faced with not
one, but two, major adversaries in the Persian Gulf. Iraqis would be living under a regime that, in an average year, was at least as murderous as the sectarian violence that followed its collapse. And the U.S. would have
seemed powerless to shape events.

Instead, we now have a government that does not threaten its neighbors, does not sponsor terrorism, and is unlikely to again seek WMD. We have a
democratic government, a first for the Arab world, and one that is
increasingly capable of defending its people and asserting its interests.

We have a defeat for al Qaeda. Critics carp that had there been no invasion, there never would have been al Qaeda in Iraq. Maybe. As it is, thousands of jihadists are dead, al Qaeda has been defeated on its self-declared "central battlefield," and the movement is largely discredited on the Arab street and even within Islamist circles.

We also have -- if still only prospectively -- an Arab bulwark against Iran's encroachments in the region. But that depends on whether we simply withdraw from Iraq, or join it in a lasting security partnership.

None of these are achievements to sneer at, all the more so because they were won through so much sacrifice. Mr. Fukuyama has now granted the "narrow" point of our bet in the form of a personal check. Here's betting him $100 back that he will come around to conceding the broader case for the
war in Iraq -- shall we say, on the 10th anniversary of its liberation?
*
Write to bstephens@wsj.com