Is Bush saying Al Qaeda is winning?

I do agree with President Bush that there Al Qaeda in Iraq is carrying out acts of violence with the intention of destabilizing Iraq, but doesn't that attempted deflection from the "civil war" question also contain the implication that Al Qaeda in Iraq is being successful(winning) while the US is losing?

"The plan of Mr Zarqawi was to foment sectarian violence," he said, referring to the former leader of al Qaeda in Iraq killed by a U.S. air strike in June, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "That's what he said he wanted to do.

"We've been in this phase for a while. And the fundamental objective is to work with the Iraqis to create conditions so that the vast majority of people will be able to see that there's a peaceful way forward," Bush said.

"What you're seeing on TV started last February," he said. "It was an attempt by people to foment sectarian violence.

I'm not trying to be oversimplistic or "gotcha" here, I'm serious. Since the Askiriyah shrine bombing in Samarra, the US has known fairly precisely the goals of the 4,000-12,000 Al Qaeda/foreign fighters in Iraq and yet they're still proceeding successfully.

And, if you look at that big Ricks' article on Anbar in the WaPo, you really get a sense of that failure.

The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence report that set off debate in recent months about the military's mission in Anbar province.....

Al-Qaeda itself, now an "integral part of the social fabric of western Iraq," has become so entrenched, autonomous and financially independent that U.S. forces no longer have the option "for a decapitating strike that would cripple the organization," the report says.

Now, I would agree with one of the criticisms from the article that Al Qaeda in Iraq is only one of the large forces acting in Anbar, (indigineous insurgency, ex-Baathists,) but the fact that Al Qaeda still exists and is still getting stronger tells me that among the, at least, four different conflicts being played out in Iraq, the US is losing this critical one.

(Of course, the irony that the US entered Iraq to end non-existent Al Qaeda ties cannot be understated.)

Finally, there is this AP story which states the unsurprising reality that despite the schedule for handover, the Iraqi Security forces are not ready to takeover Fallujah, the iconic symbol of Sunni resistance since the US's 2004 "clearing" operation, due to corruption, lack of equipment, and sectarian threat. (Too diffuse to excerpt, but well worth a read.)

Unlike the sectarian violence or the Shia militias, the Sunni insurgency/ Al Qaeda/Anbar has been the US's military focus from invasion day plus one. I think it's quite telling of the overall conflict that we're sitting here three and a half years later still entirely at sea against this region of four to five million people.

Also: In the same press conference, he implied the same of Iran and Syria,

Far from reaching out to Iran and Syria, Bush also denounced them for trying to destabilize the fragile, Western-backed government in Lebanon.

"That government is being undermined, in my opinion, by extremist forces encouraged out of Syria and Iran," Bush said. "Why? Because a democracy will be a major defeat for those who articulate extremist points of view."

Whether we call it a "civil war" or not, the reality is that the battlefield is being lost to these (what should be) smaller players. I do not blame the military. Much like the Russians in Afghanistan or the US in Vietnam, they were thrust onto a battlefield of the politician's choosing. (and now, Al Qaeda's choosing.)