One, we didn't quit. That is, we kept fighting and our troops didn't let us down by continuing to fight hard and honorably against our many enemies inside Iraq.
Two, Petraeus took command and was relentless in going on offense and letting subordinates adapt to local situations and do what it took to win in their areas of operation. And he had the authority to let them run with their instincts.
Three, fanatical enemies made it easier on us by their alienation of potential allies through terrorism.
Four, the Iraqis are getting worn out. At some point, being sick of fighting is necessary to stop fighting. The Sunnis are increasingly tired of trying to win back control of Iraq in a fight that doesn't seem to be working; and even the Shias are tired of revenge attacks, it seems, at the price of having actual lives.
The fifth reason is most interesting, the surge shocked the Sunni Arabs:
While the increase in troop numbers was important, allowing us to consolidate gains in neighborhoods we'd rid of terrorists and insurgents, the psychological effect of the surge was crucial.
Pre-surge, our enemies were convinced they were winning - they monitored our media, which assured them that America would quit. Sorry, Muqtada - that's what you get for believing The New York Times.
The message sent by the surge was that we not only wouldn't quit, but also were upping the ante. It stunned our enemies - while giving Sunni Arabs disenchanted with al Qaeda the confidence to flip to our side without fear of abandonment.
The Sunni Arabs thought they were finally winning despite their horrible losses in the battle, and then we snatched that hope away.
One reason I opposed the surge early in the discussion was that I feared it would just be more troops. I figured we were slowly winning and adding troops would erode home support more than the extra troops would accelerate the winning. I liked the surge as finally presented and the surge has worked far better in the short run than I expected.
I did speculate (and this was just that and no prediction) that even continuing the fight without an immediate withdrawal despite the calls of the victors in our November 2006 elections might shock the enemy:
Now consider that the Iraqi Sunni terrorists and insurgents of both the Baathist and jihadi variety may have a lot invested in the idea that our will was broken and we will withdraw from Iraq. This would leave them the chance to somehow overcome the majority Shias and Kurds. The Sunnis may have been getting smashed up all over Iraq, but in the nick of time we will pull a withdrawal and save them.
So, with each passing month where our forces go out and kill terrorists and jihadis with no sign we are about to pull out, will the enemy foot soldiers get seriously discouraged?
I'm not trying to put a smiley face on the situation. But consider that the enemy may have worked themselves up into a supreme effort to attack and affect our elections the last several months. Having succeeded (in their minds even if not true objectively) in getting Congress to flip party control, have the enemy convinced themselves they won the war?If so, as we continue to fight even with the opposition party controlling Congress, a sense of futility could infect the enemy and lead to elements quitting the fight.
I don't know. But it is a possibility considering that I think the Sunni Arabs are on the verge of being wiped out in Iraq and all their talk of ultimate victory is simply farcical.
And a little later, when the President proposed the surge, the possibility that our enemies might break in the face of this unexpected resolve to fight seemed real and that one reason for supporting more US troops might be to discourage our Sunni Arab enemies:
I've written before that when the Sunnis lose they may well break suddenly.
And I recently wrote a couple posts speculating that our Sunni enemies might have made a supreme effort in the belief that affecting our elections would save them. As we continue to fight and the press talks of "escalation" with the so-called "surge," I wondered if our enemies would become discouraged.
I think Peters is right about this reason. This is surely a major cause of the dramatic results of the surge. If a sizable portion of the Sunnis hadn't broken, my thoughts that we would simply continue to grind down the Sunni Arabs and increasingly fight the Shia thugs backed by Iran would have been true, I think, and the surge might have exhausted our political will to win before Iraq could stand a fighting chance of winning without becoming a Shia autocracy.
The war isn't over. But a year ago, the enemy thought our election meant they had won the war. Today, because we fought on, the pace of our winning seems to have sped up enough to create its own momentum toward breaking more enemies and convincing more to run or quit rather than fight on to the bitter end.
