The "inevitable" civil war never happened. The last Great Sadr Uprising failed, and Sadr doesn't even make the papers any more. Elections are coming up in January, with the Sunnis as enthusiastic participants. U.S. casualties from hostile action are down to six or seven a month. So far this month more troops have died in accidents than from hostile action. Numbers for electricity, sanitation, and other infrastructure benchmarks exceed prewar numbers.

All but five provinces are under Iraqi military control, and Kirkuk and Salah al-Din will probably be changing hands before the end of the year.

U.S. forces will be leaving over the next three years. They will be leaving because the war is over, not because we're giving up.

The Democratic Party spent two years trying to sabotage this war, trying to shut down the surge, and pull our forces out at the height of the violence. Bush and the military fought them, and succeeded.

Right now the Democratic Party is pretending the entire year of 2007 never happened as far as Iraq is concerned, and is focusing on shifting the national paradigm over the next three years to "Obama won the war" and "See? A timeline! We were right the whole time!" They are counting, of course, on their constituents not remembering that the Democratic timeline--Obama's timeline--originally ended in March of 2008.

So you're even behind the Democratic curve, mostly because you stopped paying any real attention to Iraq over a year ago. If you want to keep the "America has to lose" meme going, stick to Afghanistan. We'll see how that one goes.