re: I'm just trying to understand "quagmire".
A quagmire is a situation where there is no perceivable progress, and every expectation that five years from now, things would be exactly the way they are, no matter how much you work at it or how much you spend on it. Kind of like social spending programs. (Sorry. That just slipped out.)
While there are definitely problems in Iraq, there has been improvement on a number of different levels. Also, it's only been a year since combat began.