MICHAEL TOTTEN: Did We Lose in Iraq? No, and Here’s Why. “Al Qaeda in Iraq scarcely even exists anymore. No militia, either Sunni or Shia, controls territory or has its own ‘capital’ anywhere. Baghdad’s government is not going to fall, no matter how much Tehran tries to undermine it. No one will be able to claim even implausibly that Americans were driven out of Iraq under fire. Nor can anyone plausibly say the United States lost. The enemies of the United States and Iraq’s elected government have either been vanquished, forced to give up the gun, or driven into the shadows.”

It remains to be seen, of course, whether that victory will survive the latest “smart diplomacy.”