A few days back I posted with this title: "Is the Iraq War Over?" I quoted reporter Michael Yon to that effect, while sounding some cautionary notes to cover my butt. Intrepid reader BB responded:
Michael Yon says we won the war? WOW! Stop the presses...and cut and paste. Michael Yon has been saying we are winning for how many years now?
But it isn't just Yon anymore. It's the Associate Press. You read that right. From the Rapid City Journal:
The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost. Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace _ a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.
Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.
That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.
Scattered battles go on, especially against al-Qaida holdouts north of Baghdad. But organized resistance, with the steady drumbeat of bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and ambushes that once rocked the capital daily, has all but ceased.
This amounts to more than a lull in the violence. It reflects a fundamental shift in the outlook for the Sunni minority, which held power under Saddam Hussein. They launched the insurgency five years ago. They now are either sidelined or have switched sides to cooperate with the Americans in return for money and political support.
That, I suppose, is what winning looks like. If you want to get out of Iraq, if you want to transfer more troops to Afghanistan, winning in Iraq would be the ticket. Of course, you would have to admit that George W. got one thing right, and that Barack Obama, along with most the Democratic leadership, got it dead wrong. Even the AP can't deny that now.
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