Submitted for your lunchtime reading pleasure, Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times has an excellent editorial today on how we should be “keeping score” on Operation Whack Saddam Iraqi Freedom. His main criteria:

1. Have we occupied Baghdad without leveling it?
2. Have we killed, captured or expelled Saddam?
3. Have we been able to explain why some Iraqi forces are putting up such a fight?
4. Have we won this war and preserved the territorial integrity of Iraq?
5. Has an authentic Iraqi liberal nationalist emerged from the U.S. occupation to lead the country?
6. Is the Iraqi state that emerges from this war accepted as legitimate by Iraq’s Arab and Muslim neighbors?

I think this is a pretty excellent set of criteria by which to evaluate not only our success on this project, but also the validity of doing it at all. If all that we’ve accomplished when the sand clears is establishing a thriving new Iraqi branch office of Halliburton (and maybe Saddam’s head stuffed and mounted in the Bush mansion), then we good Americans should either call for a vote of no confidence in George W. Bush or all pack up and move to Canada.
Time to start practicing those accents now, eh?