<<Ok i will sematic child games....So Michael the North didn't really win the US Civil War
when the South surrendered because there were still skirmishes to be fought with the losers?>>
Well, that's a much better point than you were able to make with your WWII analogy, CU4.
In that case, with the benefit of historical hindsight, we can say both that the North won and that it won when Lee surrendered in 1865 and not when the last Federal troops were pulled out.
Without the benefit of hindsight, all I'm prepared to admit about the war in Iraq is that it's in a lull now which may be the permanent lull of a U.S. victory or the temporary lull of a determined people lying low and licking their wounds secure in the knowledge that the U.S. will have to pull out at least partially in the next few years and contemplating their next move with that in mind.