From President Barack Obama:
“No, I don’t think we’re losing.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/obama-interview-iran-isis-israel/393782/
That was Obama’s response to a question about whether the US was losing the fight against the Islamic State. That assumes that what the US is doing in Syria and Iraq is so clear-cut as fighting somebody. The US doesn’t like Syria’s leader, bad guy Bashar al-Assad. The IS is fighting Assad, which is good. However, the US doesn’t like the bad guys IS, which it has labeled a terrorist group. Assad is fighting the IS, which is also good. So two entities we don’t like are fighting each other. How do you even define winning and losing from the US perspective? Obama’s statement would be just as correct, or incorrect, if he had said: “No, I don’t think we’re winning,” which simply illustrates the absurdity of current US Middle East policy. The question presupposed that there is an outcome in Syria that could be defined as either a loss or a win for the US, but there isn’t, not as things are currently configured. Obama could have answered: “If Syria tries to run their fast-break offense, I think the IS will have to drop the man-on-man defense and go for the zone,” and it would be no less nonsensical.
