Iraq has turned a corner. a-Qaeda is being destroyed and, even worse, humiliated on the battlefield as they run from the battles and leave their troops to die. In comparison, the Iraqi forces are standing tall:

he Iraqi soldiers and units working with the Multinational Division North are “holding firm,” the director of operations for the division said today from his headquarters in Tikrit. (Video)

“They are in the fight. They’re doing what they’re told. They’re following their leaders,” Army Brig. Gen. John Bednarek said. “But more importantly, as we’ve known for years that they have that direct link and rapport with the citizens that the coalition forces do not have, they can get that immediate link, … the human dimension, that information potentially leading to intelligence.”

Bednarek, the 25th Infantry Division’s assistant division commander for operations, told reporters in Baghdad that the division’s soldiers “have killed a heck of a lot of al Qaeda” in operations in western Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province.

…

Al Qaeda leaders already have deserted their fighters, Bednarek said. “You’ve got the senior leaders of a terrorist organization that cowardly leads their mid-level leaders and followers to take on the fight that’s larger than they are,” he said. “I don’t know of any organization that’s going to be successful when the leaders, when it gets too hot, they’re the first ones that leap. It doesn’t speak too well of an organization.”

The word on al-Qaeda’s running away will get around. The people will notice and talk. Or have noticed and are talking. al-Qaeda was its own undoing, as it used fascist tactics to impose an Islamists rule over the people of Iraq who thought it was bad under Saddam Hussein. Now the Iraqis have been ‘liberated’ as the Los Angeles Times points out:

For more than a year, hundreds of masked gunmen loyal to Al Qaeda cruised this capital of their self-declared state, hauling Shiite Muslims from their homes and leaving bodies in the dusty, trash-strewn streets.

They set up a religious court and prisons, aid stations and food stores. And they imposed their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam on a population that was mostly too poor to flee and too terrified to resist.

…

“There ain’t no capital of the Islamic State of Iraq anymore,” Townsend told reporters Monday at a base on the city’s northern outskirts.

The Islamic State of Iraq is a loose coalition of insurgent groups, including Al Qaeda in Iraq, that professes loyalty to Osama bin Laden.

…

Evidence of the group’s reign included an interrogation center with knives and saws, its walls peppered with bullet holes and smeared with blood. Nearby, a house had been converted into a prison, with six numbered cells with metal doors and bars across the windows.

Residents said they were terrified of being stuffed into the trunk of a car and carted off to one of these places for such minor infractions as smoking in public.

Compare and contrast. A year under al-Qaeda’s jackboot will make the next year under Iraqi-US protection look like paradise. Because it is paradise in comparison and that is why we will win in Iraq. The fact is we will continue to gain ground, but we need patience on the next step – transition to Iraqi rule. The problems in Diyala came about in part because we reduced our footprint there too soon. So when we pushed al-Qaeda out of their first strong hold in Anbar, they took over the weakly secured Diyala Province:

Iraqi forces will not be ready to assume full responsibility for their nation’s security for years, and the U.S. military should be extremely cautious in planning to reduce its 157,000-strong force in Iraq given past setbacks, the American general in charge of the teams that advise Iraqi forces warned Monday.

Brig. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard, commander of the Iraq Assistance Group, said “it’ll take years” for Iraqi security forces to become self-reliant in protecting the country from internal and foreign threats. He suggested that it will be at least two years before the forces, which number 348,000, can “take control” of the situation in Iraq.

….

The U.S. military decision to cut its forces in Diyala by two-thirds from 2005 to 2006 and allow Iraqi forces to take over came “way too soon,” Pittard said in a videoconference with Pentagon reporters. The lesson, he said: “Do not draw down too quickly when we think there’s a glimmer of success. It will take time.”

Pittard, who early Monday went on patrol with the Iraqi army in Diyala’s violent capital, Baqouba, spoke emotionally about the deterioration of the city, where he spent a year as a brigade commander in 2004.

“I nearly shed a tear when I saw Baqouba today, that the markets aren’t up, the projects that we’d spent so much time on together with the Iraqi government are now in many places in shambles,” he said. “We cannot be in a hurry to withdraw our coalition forces from Diyala province.”

We cannot be in a hurry to lose, but some in the Surrendercrat Party are proposing just that. But I will get to that in a moment. First there is another good sign that the Iraqi police forces are being purged of Shiite extremists and balanced out with Sunni leaders. A move that will make the country more integrated and that will allow for internal checks on police performance:

More than a third of Iraq’s national police battalion commanders are now Sunni after a purge of Shiites who had a sectarian bias, a U.S. general said Monday.

Despite improvements, he predicted it will still be years before Iraqi forces are capable of securing the country by themselves.

…

“The growth of the Iraqi security forces over the past couple of years has really been quite dramatic in many ways,” he said by video conference. Among improvements: Iraqi officials have recruited Sunnis to the national police command, a group that a year ago was almost entirely Shia. The national police have been known for their ties to Shiite militia.

Pittard said that since October, officials had removed seven of nine brigade commanders — five because of sectarian bias. One of two division commanders is now Sunni, as are four of nine brigade commanders and 9 or 10 of the 27 battalion commanders, he said.

But he warned against being “in a hurry” to hand over responsibility for Iraq security to local soldiers and police — a handover U.S. officials have said is key to bringing American forces home.

There is always a fine line to walk when making progress, and trying to make it as efficiently as possible. Too fast things fall apart. Too slow things never come together. The American people need to understand that success is more than possible, it is becoming very likely. al-Qaeda taught Iraq that their new government is probably the best option out there, given the option of living under the Islamo Fascists. Now that the local populations are rising up and helping us clear out al-Qaeda and its allies, we just need to be patient as we build up the Iraqi forces to take over these last troubled provinces (the Iraqis do control much of the rest of the country).

But patience is not something the Surrendercrats have or want. In the midst of this massive turning point in Iraq’s fortunes, paid for in the blood of our best and bravest, a Clinton-ite is proposing clear disaster:

Pittard noted that Iraqi security forces are taking the lead in some places, such as in Maysan in the south, the province of Muthanna, and in Irbil in the north.

“I think it’ll take a couple of years before the Iraqi security forces are going to be able to fully take control of the security situation in Iraq,” he said.

Meanwhile, a think tank led by John Podesta, President Clinton’s former chief of staff, recommended Monday that the U.S. immediately stop arming the Iraqis and redeploy U.S. troops within a year.

“Spending billions to arm Iraq’s security forces without political consensus among Iraq’s leaders carries significant risks — the largest of which is arming faction-ridden national Iraqi units before a unified national government exists that these armed forces will loyally support,” wrote the Center for America Progress in Washington.

If there is a wrong path to go down it seems the Surrendercrats (aka Liberal Democrats) will find it and promote it. It seems to be their lot in life to be the ‘wrong-way’ party when it comes to military strategy. I guess it is possible to be genetically crippled when it comes to understanding how to win conflicts. Must be something missing upstairs. But clealry more calls for retreat are NOT the answer right now. And there is another reasons to not run now – Iran:

Patience would see us through this if not for Iran’s more and more open support to al-Qaeda and other insurgents in Iraq. As al-Qaeda fails Iran is desparately trying to shore them up and stop the route:

Newly arrived U.S. troops southeast of Baghdad are destroying boats on the Tigris River and targeting networks bringing powerful roadside bombs from Iran as the military cracks down on Sunni and Shiite extremists from all directions.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, whose command covers the southern rim of Baghdad and mostly Shiite areas to the south, said the reinforcements who arrived as part of a troop buildup have had success in rooting out militants from their sanctuaries and preventing them from fleeing the area in an operation called Marne Torch — one of a quartet of offensives in the capital and surrounding areas.

The news media is obsessed with the status of the Iraq security forces (you can see their minds waking up and saying “you mean wars are long, and require all this effort?” – duh!). So many of them are missing the point of this – Iran is supplying our enemies and giving them the means to kill our people. And according to some reports from the UK they are taking direct action:

RANIAN forces are being choppered over the Iraqi border to bomb Our Boys, intelligence chiefs say.
Military experts claim this worrying move means we are at WAR with Iran in all but name.

Last night an intelligence source told The Sun: “It is an extremely alarming development and raises the stakes considerably. In effect, it means we are in a full on war with Iran — but nobody has officially declared it.

“We have hard proof that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have crossed the border to attack us.

“It is very hard for us to strike back. All we can do is try to defend ourselves. We are badly on the back foot.”

Our Boys picked up the Iranian helicopters on radar crossing into empty desert.

The sightings have been confirmed to The Sun by very senior military sources.

At least two Brit squaddies are thought to have been killed by bombs planted during these incursions into Maysan province — Corporal Ben Leaning, 24, and Trooper Kristen Turton, 27.

A further 44 British deaths have also been linked to the highly advanced bombs, rockets and mortars which originated in Iran.

The final success will not come on patience alone (though we need to remind the democrats to stop trying to pull out prematurely, as is their want). It will also required dealing with Iran. We are going to have to give them a sign, an example of what continued meddling will cost them. I am sure the folks in the DoD can think of something. It is becoming well past time to now act.