Harry Reid is stuck out on this limb he and the dems made. His base needs to see a US loss in Iraq, but they failed to make it happen when they tried to surrender while supporting the troops (the irony of this silly position was not lost on the left or the right). The dems are no less popular than Bush, and Reid is the least popular politician out there with 19% approval in one poll. So what does he do? More of the same of course!

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged the president over Iraq by sending him a letter, ahead of a White House meeting later on Wednesday.

“As many had forseen, the escalation has failed to produce the intended results,” the two leaders wrote.

Boy, are these two impatient! To be kind one would have to say they don’t understand the military’s plan – or any military plan for that matter. To be not so kind one would note that these two political ghouls are hoping for defeat so they can reap some political gains. Sadly, I think it is a combination of the too. Reid and Pelosi are so desparate to reverse their sagging fortunes they don’t see how ridiculous, and dangerous, the posturing could be. They have no way to end the Surge. And they have no way to end the successes we are seeing. For example:

The Pentagon says there’s been an increase in casualties among troops and civilians since the US-led security push in Baghdad. The report to Congress is for the February-through-May period.

It says while violence fell in the capital and in Anbar province west of the capital, it rose in outlying areas of Baghdad province and in provinces to the north including Diyala.

The report says the violence is mainly a result of illegally armed groups engaging in sectarian and politically motivated violence, using indiscriminate bombing, murder, executions and rocket and mortar attacks.

This IS the plan of the surge. It was designed to clear and hold and create relative peace in and around Baghdad – especially al-Qaeda strongholds like Anbar Province. The result has been the bad guys are not only being chased from where we cleared, they are being coralled into ever smaller areas and being pushed into Iran (where many of them came from). With the Iran-Iraq border being heavily patrolled, these insurgents are being surrounded and trapped.

Is this working? Of course! Why? Because al Qaeda and the insurgents have been so brutal the locals (Sunni and Shia) are aligning with the US and Iraq government. Example 1:

The strategy rests on convincing tribal leaders, many of whom see the U.S. as occupiers, to identify insurgents in their midst to the American military.

“They want checkpoints as opposed to addressing who the bad people are so we can arrest them,” Sutherland complained to Tamimi. “I don’t need help with tactics – I need help with the people turning against the terrorists. I’ll bring the terrorists to justice but we need to stop this support that your friends – our friends – are giving here every day to the terrorists.”

If the strategy is working in some places, it is because tribal leaders have decided al-Qaeda has become more of a threat than the U.S. Army. Military commanders are concentrating on providing amnesty to those they deem ‘reconcilable’ and capturing or killing those who are not.

“People here need the olive branch and they need the gun,” Tamimi said.

Only the U.S. has the kind of guns they need.

At the sheikh’s meeting a few days later, several of the tribal leaders stood up and said they needed more U.S. forces with more heavy weapons to help defeat al-Qaeda.

…

One of the sheikhs had taken off his egal – the black cord securing the headdress – in shame. He said insurgents had kidnapped women in his village and stolen the livestock and he was incapable of defending their land.
The U.S. commanders told the sheikhs in return for military support the U.S. needed their cooperation in identifying the terrorists.

“I have found in my seven months here that the sheikhs have power beyond understanding,” Sutherland told them through an interpreter. “Understand that I hold the sheikhs responsible for actions on their land. Understand that I hold the sheikhs responsible for the actions of their people.”

Community by community we are converting Iraq to turn on al Qaeda and start taking responsibility for their country. This is being repeated over and over again and is why areas are clearing and calming down. When the area is cleared, a new dynamic takes over. There is an open vying for power – but not a violent one necessarily. More of a jockeying for political leadership. Example 2:

Tribal sheikhs gathered in Anbar province, once the most dangerous area in Iraq, on Wednesday to discuss abandoning the Anbar Sahwa Council, held up by Americans as an example of how Sunni Arab Iraqis have united to combat Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

The strategy of working with local sheikhs to develop tribal police to secure their own neighbourhoods showed local Sunni Arabs had become tired of the indiscriminate killing of thousands of Iraqis by al Qaeda, U.S. generals say.

That strategy is being expanded into insurgency hotbeds in western Baghdad and Diyala and Salahaddin provinces.

But the Anbar example is fragmenting amid infighting between tribal leaders and dissatisfaction with the Sahwa Council’s leader, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha.Opponents, who say they will set up a new council, accuse him of turning it into a political body.

“We don’t want to be politicians. Abu Risha is not the only one who fights al Qaeda. All the tribes in Anbar fight against al Qaeda,” Hatem Ali al-Suleiman, head of Albu Assaf tribe, told Reuters by telephone from Anbar.

He said he had the support of Anbar’s 11 most important tribal leaders and that the new body would still work with U.S. forces. Others said there were two police forces in Anbar — “one for Abu Risha and one for the rest of the province”.

Note, despite the tone of the SurrenderMedia’s interpretations around the quotes, that these people vow to fight al-Qaeda, are proud to have fought al-Qaeda, and pledge to continue working with the Americans. They have moved from clearing al-Qaeda to governing their province.

The fact is the change is slowly sweeping the country, with those areas now cleared trying to adjust to their new future and those still in the battle with al-Qaeda creating coalitions. Example 3:

There are fewer bombs going off in Baghdad, so the bombers are trying to make each one count more. Thus, in the last week, three truck bombs took out bridges and overpasses, seeking to make life miserable for an many Iraqis as possible. This is because, despite all the dismal news from Iraq, what doesn’t get reported is that most of the country is quiet, and there has been 4-5 percent growth in the overall economy for the past four years.

…

Another new terrorist tactic, which is already backfiring, is the threat to execute soldiers and police that have been captured. This would mean videos on the web of Iraqi soldiers and cops getting their heads cut off. That goes over real well with Iraqi civilians. who are already very anti-terrorist. Even most Sunni Arabs are fed up with the pointless (it hasn’t accomplished anything in four years) terrorism. As a result, most Sunni Arab tribal and religious leaders have made, or are negotiating, deals with the government, or American combat commanders directly. In Sunni Arab areas, it become quite common to see tribal gunmen fighting it out with terrorist gangs, especially foreign ones allies to al Qaeda.

This wave is catching on. So while Reid and Pelosi can fantasize about defeat, the fact is the Iraqi street is rising up against al-Qaeda and fighting by our side in growing numbers. That is progress and very near to being minimal success. So what is happening is we see the al-Qaeda and other dead ender insurgents being corralled into Diyala – where US and Iraqi forces are massing for the coup de grace

“Four regiments of 560 Peshmerga fighters will be dispatched to Baquba in the next few days to assist US and Iraqi forces,” said Brigadier General Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for Kurdish Peshmerga force.

He said the fighters will be largely deployed north of Baquba where there is a significant population of Kurds, especially in towns such as Mandeli and Khamkin.

The deployment of Peshmergas in Baquba is the first such mission for the fighters outside the northern Kurdish regions of Iraq where they manage the security.

Those desparate to find defeat can attempt to spin this. But we are slowly surrounding the forces of evil in Iraq. We have cleared much of Baghdad and Anbar provinces, bringing them to a level of stability similar to the southern Shia and northern Kurdish regions. When we surround Diyala and the other last enclaves of al-Qaeda, we will be nearing an interesting moment in Iraq. If al-Qaeda is going to collapse after a final, last ditch, explosion of violence it will do so very quickly. It will be like a balloon popping. This is how it happened in WW II and many other conflicts. They fight to the end, but the end still comes.