Are We Winning?

Stephen Green channels that other Steven today, musing on what victory will look like in this war, and whether we can plan to "win the peace."

Meanwhile, doc Russia makes a compelling case that we are in fact winning:

Well, we are now in no danger of Iraqi WMD's being used on american soil for the next twenty years. We are now establishing a foothold for democracy in the middle east. The map of the middle east, once covered in its length and breadth with breeding grounds for terrorists, has now broad expanses of areas where terrorists must focus their energy, and not a half a world away. Now, the terrorists are trying (and failing) to hold on to their territory in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Africa, instead of trying to destabilize and demoralize the US. Is that what the moments before victory will look like?

Would it look like Marines stomping in the guts of the last holdouts of the Taliban?

Would it take the form of fresh-faced soldiers lighting up Al-Qaeda insurgents?

Maybe the laughable idea (at least in 2002) that the Saudis and even the Pakistanis would be rounding up terrorists within their own borders?

Would victory include terrorists being rounded up both here in the US and in Europe? Would we be able to get the terrorists to fight our kind of war, and send them to their deaths at every turn?

Would we in fact have newspapers ever proclaiming that Al-Qaeda was on the run?

Would there come a penultimate moment when even the hardiest of martyr wannabe's can see that they are going to lose?

Be sure to read the whole thing.

While part of me hears the voice of Han Solo ("Great, kid, don't get cocky"). there is some real evidence that we are making significant progress, and we should be cautiously optimistic.

(Hat tip: Owlish).