You probably don’t even realize it, because there are few headlines saying so. And God knows the president of the United States won’t use the word, which tells you a lot about the current president of the United States.

But the United States won a war this week. A big one. A long one. We completed our victory in Iraq. We won.

It took seven years. It cost us 4,416 lives, which is 4,416 too many, but still far, far less than we have ever lost before in a war of any significance. We ousted Saddam Hussein, who threatened his neighbors (and out-and-out attacked two of them), did his best to develop nuclear weapons and, despite what you think, supported terrorists everywhere from Israel – where he routinely sent $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers – to his own backyard, where he harbored Achille Lauro hijacker Abu Abbas, to the rest of the world, where his connections to Al Qaeda (the ones you always read didn’t exist), threatened the security of pretty much everyone.

And let’s not forget Saddam’s oppression and torture of his own people, from the rare but brave political dissident to the Olympic soccer team member who didn’t acquit himself well on the field.

Saddam Hussein was a murderous, tyrannical thug who made fools of one U.S. president after another, until George W. Bush came along and decided the world had had enough.

Today, Iraq is a burgeoning democracy. Yes, it has problems, including a current political stalemate that leaves some doubt about the short-term political leadership of the nation. Yes, it still faces security threats, which is why 50,000 U.S. troops will remain there – although not in a pure combat role.

And no, it wasn’t easy to get here. A lot of things went wrong along the way. The insurgency that sprung up and reached its peak during the 2005-2006 period threatened to undo all the good we had done. The Bush Administration made its share of strategic mistakes during this period – maybe more than its share.

But if there was a disgraceful scandal to come out of the United States, it was not about these strategic mistakes. It was, rather, about the politically driven desire on the part of Democrats and the news media to see America lose this battle – all for the purpose of bringing political difficulty upon Bush.

When Harry Reid declared in 2007 that “this war is lost,” it was particularly egregious because of who Harry Reid is – the Majority Leader of the United States Senate – but all he really did was express the hopes and dreams of every Bush-hating American. They became so invested in the Iraq-as-disaster narrative, that for them, we simply had to lose. There would be far too much egg on their faces if we won.

That’s why all of official Washington, including the ridiculous Iraq Study Group, which Bush appointed with great reluctance, demanded around that same time that Bush somehow find a way to declare a phony victory and withdraw. They wanted him to surrender to the insurgents and terrorists without admitting he was doing so.

Bush was boxed into a corner in which he had few supporters, and could gain nothing politically by standing up for what he believed was right. And that’s why this was the finest hour of George W. Bush.

Not only did he insist on the troop surge that ultimately brought American victory, but he did so in the face of a newly elected Democratic congressional majority. The Democrats had re-taken control of Congress largely by condemning the Iraq War, which seemingly put them in a position to pull back on war funding and force Bush to stand down. But when Bush refused to budge, it was the Democrats who backed down and gave him the funding he needed for the surge.

How did Bush pull that off? First, unlike the Democrats, he was serious. He was dealing with the facts and the stakes in Iraq as they really were. They were simply harping on a media narrative that was selling. But too many of them knew what the facts really were, and if Iraq did descend into actual chaos and civil war (of the kind they tried to claim had already begun), they didn’t want it hung around their necks.

Iraq is not guaranteed long-term success. It is tough to establish and maintain a democracy in a region that has rarely known it. But the mission of U.S. troops was to remove the oppressor and defeat those who would strangle Iraq democracy by force. They succeeded, and defended Iraq while it established a constitution and freely elected a government by the people.

Today, the United States has a crucially important strategic ally in the middle of a historically tumultuous region, and millions of people who knew nothing but oppression their entire lives are now free.

America would surely prefer not to see a government in Iraq that is so heavily steeped in Islam, but Iraq is mostly a nation of Muslims, and Iraqi democracy is a test of the notion that Islam need not be incompatible with freedom and democracy.

It wasn’t easy, but Iraqi freedom did not collapse under the weight of sectarian violence, nor did it fall under the influence of Iran, as so many Americans claimed was the case. Quite the contrary, Iran’s mad mullahs found themselves last year under unexpected pressure for democratic reforms from Iranians who see what is happening just across their border, and want some freedom of their own.

America won. Iraq is free. George W. Bush was right.

Rejoice. Celebrate. Really, it’s OK. It’s good to win, especially when the result of winning is so very good indeed.

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