I think there's still plenty of national will left. I think most people have a sense that the war is going very badly, that's it's a very strange and different kind of war, and that none of the plans the leadership put out there make a lot of sense.

So far, no one here or anywhere else has come up with a genuine operational plan that will work and work permanently. What's needed to revive the national will, and improve sentiment for the war, is some kind of genuine victory on the ground. Until somebody starts making some lasting progress in the actual theater of operations, people are going to view the whole war effort pretty negatively.

So, I don't think this is a case of "the American people are weak willed and want to pull out of the war even though we haven't been beaten on the ground." Rather, it's a case of "the American people are smart enough to realize that we have been beaten on the ground, we just haven't been routed and driven off the battlefield because this isn't that kind of war."