How else would you define it

US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz at the House Armed Services Committee:

Mr. Secretary, I don't see an end in sight," said Representative Ike Skelton, the ranking Democrat. "We're stuck."


"We're not stuck, Mr. Skelton," Wolfowitz shot back.


Wolfowitz said the US will have achieved success in Iraqi when Iraqis assume the fight for the country's security themselves with US help.


"I can't tell you how long that's going to take," he told the committee, drawing a comparison to Bosnia where US troops are only now preparing to leave eight years after they were sent in for what was to be a one-year stay.


"This is a vastly more important mission for our national security. And it is important to stay and finish it," he said.


Skelton said it sounded as if the US forces would be in Iraq for "a good many years."


"That is entirely possible," said Wolfowitz.

Call me a pessimist, but I think the fact that we are there indefinitely with no real plan to leave and no end in sight would mean that we are, by definition, stuck.