The Military and Political Surges

We will win in Iraq.

This describes how the military surge came about. Note especially the two attempts to retake Baghdad in summer 2006 that failed. I've noted that we weren't blind to the post-Samarra problems but tried to deal with them with the old rules. The surge was developed when it became apparent that we couldn't handle the new threat under the old template.

And this article describes how Iraqi democracy is developing. The deal-making is so normal from our point of view that I don't know how anyone can claim Iraq isn't a democracy. It has a way to go, of course, but it beats most countries in the world for freedom and representation.

Victory will result from thes two surges.