As evidence mounts that the Surge is accomplishing at least some of its goals, many have noted how the Democrats don’t seem to want to recognize any progress. I noted what I like to call “spontaneous events” … those not planned by American forces … that show progress like the re-opening of a Christian church in Baghdad. But in the past few days, there have been other articles with both direct and non-direct evidences. These eat at the heart of the Democrat’s “Defense Attorney” style objections to “Bush’s War”: “there is no progress, and if there is progress, it isn’t because of us.”

First up is the first history of the Surge’s success from the conservative Weekly Standard:

After President Bush decided to change strategy and increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, the goal became to secure Iraq’s population from violence in order to allow civic and political progress. Generals David Petraeus and Odierno implemented the new strategy and determined how to use the additional troops.

Author Kimberly Kagan makes an important point here, lost among all the “we need a plan” sentiments (or the equally frequent “we need a political solution”). The Surge was a new plan, a change of direction, and it includes both political and military reforms. The turn around will be viewed, in retrospect, as rapid and (if it continues) almost revolutionary in its implementation. Ms. Kagan’s analysis may be premature; but I believe it is the first of what will be a landslide of retrospective articles that point out the brilliance of Gen. Petraeus’ strategy.

One aspect of the counter-insurgency plan put forth by Gen. Petraeus was less emphasis on protecting American soldiers and more on reducing overall violence. The net effect of this new emphasis is that more American solders are out “soldering” and doing what they do best, and the response of the civilians has been to change allegiances and support them. You would think such a policy would lead to more American deaths (and that was my fear when I first heard this aspect of the new plan). Its almost counter-intuitive, but American deaths declined.

These details support the idea that a new direction was needed, and despite lack of coverage, a new direction was indeed taken.

Next up, Shadow at Belmont Club pens a great blog post examining if the “Adult View” is still that immediate withdrawal from Iraq is the best move. Quoting from the Long War Journal, he cites the list of improvements there and how they are linked:

Ardolino’s list probably covers most of the ground. My only comment is that it’s more fruitful to think of Ardolino’s enumeration not as a list but a linked list. A linked list is one in which some items lead to others. Some items precede others. They contain pointers to items further along the list. Thus, the Surge leads to declining sectarian cleansing and refugee flight, and not the other way around. Strengthened Iraqi Security Forces are precursors to the truce with Muqtada al Sadr and the Mahdi Army, and not the other way around. The alternative is to imagine you can start anywhere in the list and go to anyplace from there. But I don’t think that describes the structure of what happened.

Add to that the NY Time’s recent story that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has been routed.
As the timeline of positive events are examined in light less clouded by immediate political concerns, the clear lesson will be that the Surge did indeed accomplish at least some of its goals. If the Surge is ultimately effective, you have a “perfect storm” the Democrats should keep an eye on.

They may be positioning themselves on the wrong side of the battle, with the perception that they could not see victory at hand (or worse, that they were “invested in defeat” for craven political purposes). If the electorate feels that way, they will lose at least the Executive branch for the next term. And if they don’t allow for some measure of success, and Iraq ends up a stable, free and democratic nation, they will lose the Executive for a generation.

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