You always knew the choice for president in November would be a stark one. John McCain and Barack Obama are separated by a vast gorge of age, philosophy, experience and more.

But the greatest difference between the two may be their view of the Iraq War.

Obama won the Democratic primary with a refrain that the war has been a mistake and a disaster. He may "refine" that stance after his trip to the Mideast this week. But his stridency in the primary will be difficult to run from.

Meanwhile, McCain came very close to declaring victory this past week, repeatedly saying the surge has succeeded.

His aides may have winced at that, considering the premature "Mission Accomplished" banner backdrop for President Bush's aircraft carrier speech following the fall of Saddam.

Still, critics on the left have often wondered what would constitute victory in Iraq.

We'll have a go at that.

We think victory in Iraq would be to hand the Iraqis a post-dictator democracy that is as stabilized and secure as possible. Victory includes routing the terrorists in Iraq and helping Iraqis with essential infrastructure such as roads and bridges and schools and hospitals.

By those measures, John McCain is right. We've succeeded.

And if so, Barack Obama will have been wrong.

At the start of the surge, Obama not only said more troops wouldn't help, but he suggested they might actually hurt, by aggravating sectarian violence. He was dead wrong.

Obama cannot run on experience; he has almost none. He'll find it tough slogging to run this fall on opposition to a war that may be winding down in our favor.

So what may be left is to run, as he has at various times, on "judgment."

Yet, his judgment on the troop surge may prove to be horribly wrong, a historic miscalculation of the first order. Indeed, he's calling for just such a surge now in Afghanistan.

Certainly, things could devolve in Iraq. But would that be an indictment of U.S. efforts? We can't live life for the Iraqis. Even the best soldiers in the world -- the ones now in Baghdad and beyond -- can't create the kind of peaceful, tolerant society we'd like them to have. That's up to them.

If things do fall to pieces, it won't be our troops' fault.

We don't disagree with Obama's desire to get our troops out as soon as possible.

We just disagree on how high their heads should be.