Guest columnist: The war we lost before it began

A president can declare victory. He cannot make it true.
Wars are won when military force achieves a political objective, not when a president announces that the enemy has been defeated.
America has repeatedly forgotten that distinction. It loses wars not because its soldiers lack courage, weapons or skill, but because political leaders replace professional judgment with loyalty, confuse destruction with strategy and mistake confidence for competence.
Washington has repeated that mistake for gen