Victory by any other name . . .

I keep seeing stories about how the U.S. "lost" the war in Iraq.

Huh?????

I'm not exactly sure what sort of strange criteria people are using to define victory these days. While I understand that one can examine the concept of war and victory from philosophical and theological points of view and arrive at complex conclusions, that's not what's going on here. The people claiming the war was "lost" are about as deep and meaty as Cap'n Crunch cereal.

I realize that Iraq is hardly a model of successful nation-building, and that Iran is likely to step up its interference. Sectarian violence will surely increase, at least in the short-term. But by any objective measure, the place is not the hellhole it was five years ago - or, for that matter, during the last years of Saddam.

Look, if you want to make the criteria for "winning" a war that the place has to look like New Jersey when you leave, no war has ever been won. Even New Jersey didn't look like New Jersey at the end of the American Revolution, and no one is saying we lost that one.

If you want to argue that the U.S. should stay in Iraq for another decade - go ahead and make your argument. Just don't claim that the war will have been "lost" if we don't.