“From our perspective, we don’t see much as far as gains,” said Marine Cpl. Bradley Warren, the first to question Cheney in a round-table discussion with about 30 military members. “We’re looking at small-picture stuff, not many gains. I was wondering what it looks like from the big side of the mountain – how Iraq’s looking.”

Cheney replied that remarkable progress has been made in the last year and a half.

“I think when we look back from 10 years hence, we’ll see that the year ’05 was in fact a watershed year here in Iraq,” the vice president said. “We’re getting the job done. It’s hard to tell that from watching the news. But I guess we don’t pay that much attention to the news.”

Another Marine, Cpl. R.P. Zapella, asked, “Sir, what are the benefits of doing all this work to get Iraq on its feet?”

Cheney said the result could be a democratically elected Iraq that is unified, capable of defending itself and no longer a base for terrorists or a threat to its neighbors. “We believe all that’s possible,” he said. ~Forbes

This article was noteworthy when it revealed that, for all the usual bluster and nonsense that Republican radio puts out about what the soldiers “on the ground” are seeing in the way of some vague progress, the soldiers in Iraq seem to be relying on the promise of progress on a macro level. At the same time, I think it is fair to say that most professional policy analysts and observers who see little meaningful progress on the macro level are holding out what little hope they have that small successes “on the ground” will accomplish what Mr. Bush’s “strategery” has so far failed to do. This suggests that there is little desirable taking place in Iraq, whether viewed in terms of geopolitics, Iraq’s domestic politics or “on the ground” from the soldiers’ perspective, unless, of course, having an election is supposed to be something truly significant. As I have already argued this week, democracy in Iraq is fundamentally undesirable even if it is successful and is, at best, irrelevant to achieving whatever concrete American objectives that may exist in the Near East.