I want you to look at the sentence you wrote really hard, and try to extract the meaning from it.

The two parts of your sentence mean exactly the same thing.

The phrase "end the war" is often used as a meaningless collection of sounds designed to create an emotional response in people. The underlying proposition is that if we left Iraq, it would all "just go away," and not affect us, not affect the Middle East, and not affect what we're doing in Afghanistan.

You do not "end a war" by capitulating. The war in Iraq would not have "ended" a year ago or two years ago or three years ago if we had pulled our troops out, any more than the war in Vietnam "ended" when American troops left. Eventually, North Vietnam, which had never bothered to "end the war" came down on the South and devoured it. At the time, America's Left pointedly looked the other way, and even attacked stunned liberals like Joan Baez who dared to point out the horrors going on over there.

Wars are ended one of three ways: Victory, like most wars America has fought, defeat, as in Vietnam, or a stalemate like in Korea, enforced over decades by the presence of over 40,000 U.S. troops permanently stationed there and backed by a "tripwire" policy of destruction if they are attacked.