BALTERS: Gates’ ambiguous victory speech mirrors Iraq War’s unsettled outcome

"God bless you all. This is your victory! It is the victory of the cause of freedom in every land. In all our long history we have never seen a greater day than this. Everyone, man or woman, has done their best. Everyone has tried. Neither the long years, nor the dangers, nor the fierce attacks of the enemy, have in any way weakened the independent resolve of the ... nation. God bless you all."

This is how you mark the end of a war you know you have won unquestionably, and whose cause was undeniably righteous.

Winston Churchill, when he shouted these words from the balcony of the Ministry of Health in London in early May 1945, knew beyond doubt those two facts applied to the war the Allied forces had just won, the war whose victory the crowd below him celebrated.

So it should come as no surprise that Defense Secretary Robert Gates' recent speech in Ramadi marking the end of the Iraq War didn't mirror Churchill's ecstasy or vocabulary.

Gates' tempered congratulation to the troops shows the world that he understands victory in Iraq is not absolute, nor was the cause all that righteous.

Sifting through his carefully chosen words proves this.

As for the latter claim, Gates does all the work for you.

He remarked that the Iraq War "will always be clouded by how it began."

Remember how the war hawks made the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Colin Powell waved anthrax at the United Nations, and President Bush said Iraq acquired uranium from Africa?

Then we invaded all set to repossess those toys and, well…

So his words seem to suggest that the reasons for going to war themselves were clouded.

Did we invade for the oil? Did we invade to further establish our permanent presence in the Middle East?

Did we invade because Saddam Hussein tried to kill George Jr.'s daddy?

Who knows?

It was clouded (Gates' words, not mine). In all fairness to Gates and the Defense Department, he meant no such thing.

But he did imply the war had a controversial, if not unjustified, beginning.

Perhaps that is why his tone failed to register as celebratory.

Or perhaps it was because he realized, as Churchill did, you need outright victory to be ecstatic about the end of a war.

The 50,000 or so troops left in Iraq still face the danger of improvised explosive devices, sniper fire and suicide bomb attacks.

Just because the violence has quieted down since 2006 doesn't mean it's quiet.

And subduing the enemy is only half of the equation for determining the end of a war.

Accomplishment of the mission is the other half.

In that department, Gates was noticeably cagey.

Commenting on whether the U.S. was successful in its Iraq endeavor, he said "It really requires a historian's perspective in terms of what happens here in the long run."

And he added that "how it all weighs in the balance over time I think remains to be seen."

These two quotes reveal just how dreary it looks from the present perspective.

Iraq's democratic government is barely, if at all, off the ground, major infrastructure problems still remain, and the country is hardly united.

The Kurdish regions in the north are self-isolated and semi-autonomous.

The Shiite population continues to adhere more to their local leaders than to the national government and the Sunnis continue to remain paranoid of both groups.

So, Gates's best bet is that the future perspective will provide an image of an improved Iraq.

Yet it's not a very safe bet, because the current conditions appear less like a starting point from which things will get better and more like a foundation for imminent conflict.

Finally, the tacit message to take from Robert Gates's speech seems to be: this is what you get when you fight a war with false validation and an unclear objective.

You get a non-ending.

You get convoy after convoy of military personnel crossing the southern border nonchalantly, without cheers and without the band playing in the background.

Instead of the big homecoming parade in New York or elsewhere, you get shrugs from the population waiting for the next news story on CNN.

Instead of a Churchill on the verge of tears thanking the steadfast nature of his fellow citizens, you get a "good job" from the Defense Secretary, and a "let's wait and see."

Steven Balters is a junior political science and philosophy major. Reach him at stevenbalters@dailynebraskan.com.