I agree with Senator Joe Lieberman (who would get my vote if he ran for national office) that not only must we win in Iraq, there are signs we can and are on the path to that end.

he officials I met in Baghdad said that 90% of suicide bombings in Iraq today are the work of non-Iraqi, al Qaeda terrorists. In fact, al Qaeda’s leaders have repeatedly said that Iraq is the central front of their global war against us. That is why it is nonsensical for anyone to claim that the war in Iraq can be separated from the war against al Qaeda — and why a U.S. pullout, under fire, would represent an epic victory for al Qaeda, as significant as their attacks on 9/11.

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The precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces would not only throw open large parts of Iraq to domination by the radical regime in Tehran, it would also send an unmistakable message to the entire Middle East — from Lebanon to Gaza to the Persian Gulf where Iranian agents are threatening our allies — that Iran is ascendant there, and America is in retreat.

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during my visit I saw hopeful signs of progress. Consider Anbar province, Iraq’s heart of darkness for most of the past four years. When I last visited Anbar in December, the U.S. military would not allow me to visit the provincial capital, Ramadi, because it was too dangerous. Anbar was one of al Qaeda’s major strongholds in Iraq and the region where the majority of American casualties were occurring. A few months earlier, the Marine Corps chief of intelligence in Iraq had written off the entire province as “lost,” while the Iraq Study Group described the situation there as “deteriorating.”

When I returned to Anbar on this trip, however, the security environment had undergone a dramatic reversal. Attacks on U.S. troops there have dropped from an average of 30 to 35 a day a few months ago to less than one a day now, according to Col. John Charlton, commander of the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, headquartered in Ramadi. Whereas six months ago only half of Ramadi’s 23 tribes were cooperating with the coalition, all have now been persuaded to join an anti-al Qaeda alliance. One of Ramadi’s leading sheikhs told me: “A rifle pointed at an American soldier is a rifle pointed at an Iraqi.”

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In Anbar, for example, the U.S. military has been essential to the formation and survival of the tribal alliance against al Qaeda, simultaneously holding together an otherwise fractious group of Sunni Arab leaders through deft diplomacy, while establishing a political bridge between them and the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. “This is a continuous effort,” Col. Charlton said. “We meet with the sheikhs every single day and at every single level.”

We have succeeded in taming Anbar. We are now using those same tactics to corall al-Qaeda and defeat them. The muslim street is rising up and taking up arms as our allies against al-Qaeda. No matter what delusions the Surrendercrats and SurrenderMedia hold, their fantasies inside their heads in NY City and LA cannot change what is happening on the ground in Iraq. al-Qaeda is becoming the new enemy of the Muslim street. And they have pushed that street, through their abhorent violence, into allainces with American and the democratic Iraqi government. If we had predicted this would happen back in November no one would have believed it. Now only a few still deny it has happened. And few remember the reason we are in Iraq:

Here, too, however, a little perspective is useful. While benchmarks are critically important, American soldiers are not fighting in Iraq today only so that Iraqis can pass a law to share oil revenues. They are fighting because a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, overrun by al Qaeda and Iran, would be a catastrophe for American national security and our safety here at home.

Too true. This is not about benchmarks. It is about defeating al-Qaeda and offering a new future to the Middle Easrt. A future devoid of Islamo Fascism.