What has The Surge created? Vast areas where al-Qaeda’s brutality has been swept away, allowing normalcy to return to the Iraqi people:

Only six months ago, many Iraqi travellers considered it a suicidal risk to take the insurgent-controlled desert highway that stretches from Baghdad to neighboring Syria and Jordan.

But now Iraqi driver Jamal says the Sunni Islamist al Qaeda insurgents who used to abduct and execute his Shi’ite passengers before robbing him and fellow Sunnis are virtually a thing of the past.

“A lot more people are using this road these days,” said Jamal as he waited for passengers to fill his seven-seater vehicle as he prepared to go to Syria.

“Some are visibly reluctant, but you will always hear them admit at the border how safe it was going through the countless checkpoints with no gunmen in sight.”

Security along the Anbar highway has been transformed by the emergence of a tribal alliance of Sunni sheikhs and their fighters who have managed to suppress Anbar’s volatile insurgency — after repeated failures by Washington and Baghdad.

Compare and contrast: the bloody streets when al-Qaeda ruled and the return of normal life when they are moved out. It is that simple.