Politics & Power Quote by Mohammed Aldouri

Aldouri’s line is less prediction than indictment: a way to lock two wars into the same moral frame and declare the verdict already written. By pairing Vietnam with Iraq, he reaches for America’s most culturally bruising military memory, then uses it as a rhetorical weapon. Vietnam isn’t just a conflict; it’s shorthand for hubris, confusing metrics of “progress,” and a superpower discovering that firepower can’t purchase legitimacy. “Did not succeed” sounds clinical, but it carries a sting: failure measured not only in battlefield outcomes, but in the inability to control the story.

The phrase “will never succeed” does more than argue Iraq is unwinnable. It tries to foreclose the very possibility that American intentions could be redeemed by better tactics, more troops, or a new strategy. That absolutism is political technology: it rallies opposition, hardens national pride, and signals to potential allies that cooperation is futile. It also speaks to insurgent logic, where time is a resource; the longer the occupier stays, the more the occupier is made to look desperate.

Context matters. Aldouri, an Iraqi politician speaking in the early post-2003 era, is addressing a moment when “success” was being marketed in Washington through elections, reconstruction projects, and press conferences. His sentence rejects that PR calculus. Success, he implies, isn’t an exportable product; it’s an internal consent. The subtext is blunt: you can topple a regime, but you can’t invade your way into being wanted.