Rush Limbaugh wrote an editorial which expressed the controversial thesis that real, lasting peace between military opponents can only be achieved if one of them is totally defeated.

Examples are given. Not mentioned, but surely worth noting, is the nearly endless and useless negotiations we undertook with the North Vietnamese while the war was going on. The war ended when we left the field and vowed never to return.

Does anyone have any ready examples that refute this thesis? Has a real lasting peace ever been negotiated between two military combatants without one being brought to its knees?

If this is true, then the only way Columbia will have peace is by hunting down and rooting out the rebels, or if the rebels overthrow the government and shoot all their opponents.