One can define success anyway one wants, simply by gaming the nominal goals. For example, if the goal of invading Iraq were to drain the public coffers of a couple trillion bucks, long term, to put a few thousand of our finest young men and women in the ground, to eliminate a couple decades' worth of international goodwill, to turn Iraq into one of the primary operating grounds for Al Qaeda, and to radicalize Iraq's neighbor, Iran, while simultaneously distracting American from the fight to bring down Bin Laden's organization, then McCain is entirely right. It succeeded.