Politics & Power Quote by John M. McHugh

The line sells nation-building as a neat sequence of deliverables: election, constitution, border control, public safety. That managerial cadence is the point. McHugh isn’t describing Iraq so much as narrating progress for an American audience trained to think in milestones, not mess. “Critical step” sounds urgent but also procedural, like the project is on schedule if everyone just hits the next checkbox.

The real rhetorical work happens in “overall plan.” It implies coherence and ownership: someone has a plan, someone is executing it, and the election is proof the plan is working. In the Iraq context, that phrase quietly launders the improvisation, factional politics, and violence that made post-invasion governance anything but linear. It also shifts agency. Iraqis appear as the beneficiaries of “that plan,” not its authors, while the U.S. (and its officials) sit just offstage as the competent strategists guiding the transformation.

“Fully constitutional” is a legitimizing stamp, less about the lived practice of democracy than about the kind of institutional packaging that satisfies international and domestic expectations. Pairing it with “secure its own borders” and “ensure the safety of its citizens” folds military goals into civic language. Security becomes the proof of democracy, and democracy becomes the justification for security operations.

The intent is stabilizing: to frame the election as a pivot from occupation to sovereignty, from American responsibility to Iraqi self-sufficiency. The subtext is an exit narrative. If the government can secure borders and protect citizens, the U.S. can argue it’s leaving behind not just ballots, but a state that can stand up on its own.