How about this: we can't win the Iraq war.

The issue of how we feel about Islamic and Christian fundamentalism aside (one must study the Holy wars and how the empirical drives of western civilization have been justified through “manifest destiny,” or converting the heathens, through time immemorial to understand how this has truly happened on both sides), the war in Iraq, unfortunately, cannot be won by the United States, statistically and pragmatically speaking. To make this clear, we have to examine the Vietnam War. Though the conflict in Vietnam may seem somewhat principally different than in Iraq (debatable, but I'll leave that topic for another day), there are three striking similarities:

1. Both conflicts were sold to the American people under false pretenses: for Vietnam it was the Gulf of Tonkin incident and we all know too well that for Iraq it was weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq was somehow connected to Al Qaeda and hence had something to do with the tragedy of September 11. 2001 or Jihadist mentality in general.

2. The fighting techniques of the enemy included a blatant disregard for the casualties of their own ranks and hence they would not be swayed into surrender based on their losses or being bled into giving in for fear of losing future generations.

3. The American people do not share this blatant disregard of casualties amongst their ranks and public opinion of the war has and will turn sour before the enemy has even given a single thought to such ideas.

The problem that this sets up is that even if the U.S. takes the approach of total annihilation of every fundamentalist, Jihadist Muslim, there is no way to practically carry out such an idea. There is no nation, no border to the ideology and their ranks swell with the anger that they feel over the further occupation of Arab lands and the war under false pretenses. And the west has not been innocent in its Middle East and third world dealings. Study your history and you will find that we have manipulated and controlled countries for their assets much the way we broke treaty after treaty with Native Americans throughout our domestic history in order to expand our holdings and acquire resources. If there’s something we want and it’s on someone else’s land we will find a way to get it. Agree or disagree with the above, certainly there are enough disenfranchised Muslim youths that do and these will flow across the borders of Iraq from Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, etc., etc., etc, and create fresh martyrs for the cause. After all, this is the same basic enemy that has already defeated the Soviet Union and let us not forget that Ho Chi Minh defeated China and France before taking on the United States.