the military is not the losers. It is our administration who continues to attempt to use a military force to create a political solution.
It doesn't matter how long we stay or how many Iraqis we kill and subdue while we're there. Whenever we leave, Iraq is going to devolve into civil war and the american trained Iraqi army will devolve into well trained sectarian militias who will carry out the carnage that will accompany that civil war.
Our military can "win" all it possibly can win in Iraq, and we will still not have a strong pro-American, multi cultural Jeffersonian democracy on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates serving as a beacon of freedom for the rest of the Islamic world.