Iraq's Over, but the Economic War Continues

President Obama used his second-ever Oval Office address to declare the end of military operations in Iraq.

Image: Official White House image by Pete Souza

So the war in Iraq is over. Finally. Now what?

That question clearly was on the mind of President Barack Obama last night as he spoke from the Oval Office. It was only the second time this president sat behind his desk in that most famous of workplaces to speak to the nation.

What Obama said about Iraq wasn’t news. The administration had previously set this deadline to officially bring to a close American combat operations in Iraq. The war lasted more than seven years, killed 4,416 U.S. service members, and cost the taxpayers as much as $1 trillion.

The news (if you could call it that, no surprises here really) came in the direction Obama tried to point the nation—a pitch to adopt his long-term economic vision. Obama said the money spent on the war had “short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits.”

Obama praised the commitment of his predecessor, George W. Bush, who led the nation into the war with Iraq, a nation Bush was convinced was responsible for terror directed at the United States. But Obama also suggested the long, drawn-out effort had its costs. “For too long, we have put off tough decisions on everything from our manufacturing base to our energy policy to education reform. As a result, too many middle-class families find themselves working harder for less, while our nation’s long-term competitiveness is put at risk,” he said.

Without giving any specifics, Obama talked about the challenge ahead at home—namely to get millions of people working again and to give the economy a real boost. His rhetoric was classically Democrat: a shout-out to the middle class, a push for education, a call for job training, a vow to end U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

“We must unleash the innovation that allows new products to roll off our assembly lines and nurture the ideas that spring from our entrepreneurs. This will be difficult. But in the days to come, it must be our central mission as a people and my central responsibility as president,” Obama said.

His sentiment is all well and good, but it’s unlikely to get the nation to rise practically as it did in March 2003 when Bush told the American people why he was committing American troops and risking American lives for this war.

Republicans in Congress who want to extend Bush-era tax breaks for the richest Americans won’t be compelled to follow. Tea Party members and followers of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck will still think the nation has lost its way and that it is their mission to "restore" the country to its former glory.

Perhaps if Obama had talked economic opportunities specifically created by the end of this war—the ancillary benefits from Defense research, the scores of well-trained military personnel who could now give back directly to their communities, even the potential for more private investment one day in Iraq—he might have swayed a mind or two.

As it stands, the nation will simply be happy its combat troops won’t be working in Iraq anymore. For today, at least, that should be enough.