I outlined this progress in this post.
The problem stems from talk of the "insurgency" as a single entity. In fact, there are multiple components of "the insurgency": Baathists, foreign Sunni jihadis, local Sunni jihadis, Sunni "nationalists", Shia jihadis, criminals, and corruption in general. All of these elements contribute to the general level of violence that is reported as a whole. Iranian and Syrian help for factions inside Iraq help the violence along.
We've defeated the Baathists, the Sunni jihadis have alienated the majority with their violence against civilians, and the Sunni nationalists have made deals with us to fight the jihadis in Anbar. And as we've fought these enemies we've held them off long enough for the Iraqi government to set up security forces and governmental entities.
The primary enemies left are the Sunni and Shia jihadis aided by Iran and Syria. The Sunni jihadis cannot take over against the Shia majority and Kurdish allies. But they do allow the Shia jihadis to thrive as protectors of the Shias. This "protection" unfortunately takes the form of killing Sunni Arabs, which retards the progress toward getting the Sunnis to essentially surrender. Which in turn gives the Shia thugs the excuse to keep killing Sunni Arabs. And as long as the Shia jihadis thrive and have Iranian support, they remain the primary internal threat to the Iraqi government and the development of democracy. This is the reason the Arab Syrians and Persian Iranians ally to supply both Shia and Sunni jihadis.
The corruption and criminals are there, too, but are lesser threats for the moment.
We are changing strategy with the surge to focus on these remaining threats. We are trying to halt the Shia jihadis from killing innocent Sunni Arabs and neutralize the Shia jihadis, hitting the Sunni Jihadis (especially in Anbar), and working to stop foreign aid for the remaining enemies.
In this light, this article that notes how the Baathists have been supplanted by jihadis as the main Sunni insurgent threat is welcome. Our press/anti-war crowd doesn't seem to understand the war, but it is worse than that:
But it's not only the anti-war crowd in the press that doesn't want the American people to know that America's soldiers are fighting an Al Qaeda-led insurgency in Iraq. The Central Intelligence Agency and most of America's intelligence community don't want to do that either, according to a major scoop reported by the Sun's own Eli Lake on Monday. Mr. Lake writes that the CIA and others are still concluding that the insurgency is, for the most part, Baathist in nature, while those actually battling the insurgency on the ground, namely the intelligence arms of the Army and the Marines, are contesting that assertion claiming instead that the Sunni insurgency is largely driven by Al Qaeda.
The generic term "insurgent" — preferred by most press organs — is bland and insipid, while the term Al Qaeda may strike an emotional note with many Americans. It is one thing for congressional Democrats and presidential hopefuls to pledge withdrawing the American military from a melee with insurgents, and a whole different thing for them to sound a retreat in the face of an Al Qaeda offensive.
We can knock down the latest threat. And we must. But we have to stand and fight to do so. Redeploying is too suspiciously like retreat to win this war. And if we fail to understand what we are fighting, too many will not understand what we would retreat from if we fail to fight.
Perhaps we could establish schools and programs that would prepare reporters to write stories that inform our public rather than just serve as vehicles for reporter opinions and biases. We could call them "journalism schools" or something. Think about it. Could be a good idea if we ever want to dispel the mysteries of war.
