This is surely a sign of victory:
"The security environment in Iraq continues to improve as violence has dropped dramatically in the last 20 months and normal life is returning to the country," the report says. "Many residents now express greater hope for the future and are demanding a better standard of living."
While much work remains to be done to cement this accumulating victory, this caution is just idiotic:
"The underlying sources of instability in Iraq have yet to be resolved," the report says. "Iraq remains fragile because its major power brokers do not share a unified national vision."
Huh? By that definition, America is fragile. Explain to me the unified national vision shared by Republicans and Democrats, let alone factoring in the Code Pink and Green nutjobs out there.
It just doesn't matter if Iraqi factions have different objectives. It doesn't.
What matters is whether the factions settle their differences with ballots and rule of law rather than bullets and arbitrary decisions by those who have power. We manage to do that. Our system provides stability and it doesn't matter that different factions have different goals and strategies.
If the lack of unified visions is the main obstacle to declaring victory in Iraq, we're doing all right indeed.
