[Yahoshua]

I'm a very pragmatic person.

What I see is a battle being fought against an enemy being supplied from outside Iraq (much like the Vietnam War and the Korean War). The battle isn't over, and it isn't about fighting an entity so much as it is an idealism that has become a scourge among people.

We will not declare victory when when "stability" occurs as we perceive it in the West since this will NEVER occur (look at Israel and the Arabs for example). We will win when the Iraqi gov't can stand on their own without our help, and the Iraqi people can vote democratically and decide their own future. That is victory.

Vietnam we lost because the politicians willed it to happen as it is happening now, seeing as how from a military standpoint we won EVERY engagement in the Vietnam war when we were involved. But we tied the hands of our commanders, limiting them to sentry duties in South Vietnam instead of destroying North Vietnams' infrastructure. We created our own demise. Once we abandoned South Vietnam, the south collapsed, and the United States is responsible for it.

When the U.S. leaves Iraq, all hell will break loose. If the Iraqi gov't collapses, we have lost the war. If we leave Iraq now, failure is guaranteed.