Victory is the new Clintonian "is" word. As in, it depends on what your definition of "victory" is.

Does victory in Iraq mean when every single insurgent is dead? Wait, no, we don't say "insurgent" anymore. The new preferred 'n' improved words are "Saddamist" and "rejectionist." So . when they're all dead?

Or when every single adult Iraqi is a registered voter and participant in the democratic process? When Iraqi security forces have total control over every town and byway? Or does victory mean when the U.S. can claim to have kept her word to the Iraqi people?

So go the questions in the wake of President George W. Bush's recent speeches - four in two weeks - about our role in Iraq. Now that Iraq's historic elections have passed, and were successful by any measure, are we there yet?

Reading Bush's mind is busy work. With stubborn consistency, he has stuck by his guns - and yes, stayed the course - on when the U.S. will pull out of Iraq.

"As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down," he says.

"We will not leave until victory has been achieved," he says.

But what does that mean?

Given the flexibility implicit in such statements, it's hard to know what he intends. Or whether we can mark our calendars with indelible ink.

The truest answer probably is the one we don't care to hear. Bush doesn't know when we're going to leave Iraq, and he doesn't know when victory will be achieved - or even, precisely, what it is. Because, among other reasons, how could he?

There won't be a white-flag moment. There is no endpoint in a war against an idea. Most likely victory will be a feeling, a tipping point where enough rights outnumber wrongs.

Victory, most likely, will "feel" like this: He came, he conquered, he wants to leave the lights on when he calls it a day.

He wants no Iraqi to say, "America screwed us."

That time will come when, as Bush has indicated, Iraq is constitutionally organized and physically secure enough to manage its own fate. This past week's election is a significant step toward the first part of that goal. Continued...