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Winning the war

As Clifford May writes in Sunday's Commentary column "Setting clear goals," suppressing al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein loyalists in Iraq "is the necessary precondition for all our other objectives." We must "show we won't be defeated militarily ... [to facilitate] Iraq's economic and political" goals.

The situation in Iraq, with particular attention to Baghdad, should be a candidate for a site-specific update of the Brezhnev Doctrine. That is, once any contested area comes under Iraqi government control, it must never be ceded back to the adversaries. Iraq must consolidate and maintain victories.

The Iraqi government under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seems to be on the correct intensive track. Baghdad can serve as a test case, and, once pacified, it must stay pacified. Iraq is in the "Israel zone" — that is, it cannot always consolidate gains, but it can hope to keep them at a more-or-less "manageable" level. From now on, Iraq and its allies must intensively manage gains. Maybe the war will not be won soon, but it must never be lost. After all, the war in Iraq is "not over 'til it's over." And that's defined by nurturing an allied victory.

ONA BUNCE

Bethesda

The FDA and drug safety