The Surge Is Working, Just As The Venal Toads Who *Voted For The Strategy* Are Cutting Petraeus And His Amazing Troops Off At The Knees

Must-read piece by Krauthammer.

Finally, after four terribly long years, we know what works. Or what can work. A year ago, a confidential Marine intelligence report declared Anbar province (which comprises about a third of Iraq's territory) lost to al-Qaeda. Now, in what the Times's John Burns calls an "astonishing success," the tribal sheiks have joined our side and committed large numbers of fighters that, in concert with American and Iraqi forces, have largely driven out al-Qaeda and turned its former stronghold of Ramadi into one of most secure cities in Iraq.

It began with a U.S.-led offensive that killed or wounded more than 200 enemy fighters and captured 600. Most important was the follow-up. Not a retreat back to American bases but the setting up of small posts within the population that, together with the Iraqi national and tribal forces, have brought relative stability to Anbar.

The same has started happening in many of the Sunni areas around Baghdad, including Diyala province -- just a year ago considered as lost as Anbar -- where, for example, the Sunni insurgent 1920 Revolution Brigades has turned against al-Qaeda and joined the fight on the side of U.S. and Iraqi government forces.

We don't yet know if this strategy will work in mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods. Nor can we be certain that this cooperation between essentially Sunni tribal forces and an essentially Shiite central government can endure. But what cannot be said -- although it is now heard daily in Washington -- is that the surge, which is shorthand for Gen. David Petraeus's new counterinsurgency strategy, has failed. The tragedy is that, just as a working strategy has been found, some Republicans in the Senate have lost heart and want to pull the plug.

It is understandable that Sens. Lugar, Voinovich, Domenici, Snowe and Warner may no longer trust President Bush's judgment when he tells them to wait until Petraeus reports in September. What is not understandable is the vote of no confidence they are passing on Petraeus. These are the same senators who sent him back to Iraq by an 81 to 0 vote to institute his new counterinsurgency strategy.

...

Just this week, Petraeus said that the one thing he needs more than anything else is time. To cut off Petraeus's plan just as it is beginning -- the last surge troops arrived only last month -- on the assumption that we cannot succeed is to declare Petraeus either deluded or dishonorable.

Michael Yon, who has thusfar avoided comment on the merits of the surge, drops that reluctance:

HH: Now yesterday, Harry Reid said on the floor of the Senate that the surge has failed. Do you think there’s any factual basis for making that assertion, Michael Yon, from what you’ve seen in Iraq over the last many months?

MY: He’s wrong, he’s wrong. It has absolutely not failed, and in fact, I’m finally willing to say it in public.

Hugh Hewitt's piece on the Defeatist Caucus of the Republican Party is here. As well as phone numbers and emails for the Defeatist Caucus -- and a few Democrats from reddish states who might need a little grassroots TLC.

Meanwhile... Defeatist Caucus leaders Lugar and Warner want a new authorization for war in Iraq -- one which would circumscribe what our soldiers can do there, set up a withdrawal timetable, etc. -- leaving our soldiers in harm's way while not actually giving them the latitude or time to actually win.

Fuck-shits, get this right: If our soldiers are not there to win, they should not be there at all. You are trying, over and over again, to trade the meaningless, unnecessary deaths of countless brave servicemen for political cover.

Either get serious about withdrawing them or get behind them 100%. Enough of this one-foot-in-one-foot-out craven Hokey Pokey with men's lives.

posted by Ace at 05:07 PM

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