From Pyrrhus to Petraeus, the historical record offers a sobering truth: most wars do not end cleanly, and the commanders who fare worst are those who mistake momentum for strategy. The question General Petraeus posed in Iraq — how does this end? — is not merely tactical but deeply human, a reckoning with the gap between ambition and reality. As conflicts grind on in Ukraine and the Gulf, history counsels that the most courageous act a leader can perform is not to press forward, but to honestly assess when pressing forward serves no one. Senator Aiken's 1966 counsel — acknowledge what has not