I would say that it is not only a question of defining victory. It is inherently at this stage also a question of defining defeat. Both of those issues were either poorly defined (victory) or not addressed at all (defeat). In a regional context and a local context, they play against us, heavily. The opposition--again another one of those ill-defined concepts that has as we all know evolved over the past several years--does not have to define victory. They simply have to avoid losing, that being defined as their destruction and/or the mobilization of what constitutes an "Iraqi society" at this stage--yet another ill-defined concept to say the least.

And at the risk of saying I have said this before, the truly operative defintions are those set by the "Iraqi" people. If they first redefine themselves along ethnic and sectarian lines then they are very much altering the right and left limits of what we discuss as victory or defeat. And that paradigm also affects how they define their own victory. When it was a case of insurgency, then as I said above victory for the insurgents was a case of the insurgents not losing. Victory for the remainder of Iraqis was determinable by how they aligned themselves in that fight. For the majority as is the case in most insurgencies victory was simple survival in the hopes of betterment for their lives. In the situation now with ethnic and sectarian fault lines grating, victory and defeat for the "Iraqi" people is no longer truly operative. Victory and defeat are according to group and that is a zero sum game--the classic dillema in such conflicts--because any win means that somebody lost and lost big. In that case they can no longer hope to win by avoiding defeat; they have to win in absolute terms, knowing the alternative is absolute defeat.

best

Tom