What is it with George Bush and his halfwitted predilection for declaring victory before the fight is over?

Bush speech hails Iraq ‘victory’President George W Bush has delivered a speech to mark the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Speaking at the Pentagon, Mr Bush said “removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision”. And he went on to say that the recent “surge” of US troops to Iraq has brought about “a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror”.

Mr. President, if they’re still shooting at you, you should be careful about declaring victory. If your soldiers, as they walk down the road, have to confront the possibility that each step might be their last because the locals have planted a bumper crop of IEDs, the fat lady hasn’t yet sung. If your policies are serving as the enemy’s greatest ongoing recruiting tool, the war is far from over.

And most importantly, winning a battle – which you may or may not have done – is a significantly different thing from winning the war.

Then again, your life hasn’t exactly provided you with a lot of clean victories, has it? So maybe it’s not your fault – in most of your fuck-ups this is probably about the point where Daddy steps in and fixes things, allowing you to feel good about yourself again.

Of course, right now I’m less worried about Bush the First and Bush the Second than I am our would-be Bush the Third, John W. McCain, a man who can’t seem to tell Shi’a from Shinola. He has repeatedly demonstrated that he can’t distinguish between Iran and al Qaeda, either, and today Barack Obama called him on it.

“Just yesterday, we heard Senator McCain confuse Sunni and Shiite, Iran and al Qaeda,” Senator Obama said. “Maybe that is why he voted to go to war with a country that had no al Qaeda ties. Maybe that is why he completely fails to understand that the war in Iraq has done more to embolden America’s enemies than any strategic choice that we have made in decades.”

McDubya has promised that there will be more wars. Perhaps now would be a good time for him to go ahead and start declaring victory, hmmm?