Belligerati

This strikes me as bad for the Democrats. If a consensus is forming that the surge is working, that the Iraq war is being won just as the Democrats decide to pull out the stops to it shut down, then they will once again look like they don't understand national security. Sublime Bloviations echoes a similar thought.

If it is as McQ says, that " the huge difference a strong commander can make, and despite the nonsensical and baseless mutterings of Harry Reid concerning Petraeus' competence and veracity, he has made a huge difference in the fight in Iraq", then maybe we'll see a Petraeus in '12 candidate if the war is won.

Kyle E. Moore points out claims that these two analysts who have been cheering this war on for 4 years (they also want to exclude the two from the next Democratic presidential administration) and that Christian Science Monitor says that "...Iraq's leadership has failed to take advantage of some of the breathing room offered by the US-led surge against insurgents and militants." and that there is "paralysis to governmental institutions and has left parliament unable to make headway on 18 benchmarks Washington is using to measure progress in Iraq, including legislation on oil revenue sharing and reforming security forces."

TigerHawk point out that these guys have solid Democratic credentials including a stint on Clinton's National Security Advisor's staff. Are all those positions political? I don't know. He also shows strong evidence that while the two did favor the war in the first place, that they've been critical since at least mid 2005 (O'Hanlon, Pollack). He also rightly points out "that victory in the war against violent Islamism requires that the Muslim world polarize." and that this successful strategy does just that.

The Belmont Club echoes similar themes, but goes into greater analysis of the role of Al-Queda.

I hope if we stay we win and if we leave without winning that the Iraqis don't loose. I was beginning to lose hope that the former was possible and the latter preventable. This was a pleasant thing to wake up to on a Monday morning -- hope.