What I was pointing out was that "winning" in Iraq and "winning the war on terror" are apples and oranges. There are many of us that don't believe there is a war on terror. It's an oxymoron really. A war on a tactic? It doesn't matter what happens in Iraq. The elements that create terrorists have little to do with what government is in power in one country on Earth.

Militarily we "won" in Iraq the day Saddam's army was overrun by our troops but a working and functional Iraq has nothing to do with winning. It has to do with cultural evolution and you don't do that with military force. The success of the surge, from what I'm reading of reporters still in Iraq has more to do with negotiation and money than it has to do with sheer numbers of troops. I also understand that the situation there is still very tentative and that there are still very dangerous areas. Bottom line is that no matter how many troops we keep there or how many bad guys we throttle, Sunnis and Shiites just don't seem to be able to get along. Right now they're not killing one another because they're in isolated areas.

I really hope you are right in this but I will never accept a long-term large American military presence in Iraq anymore than I want our troops in force anywhere in the world playing policeman.

Art