Yesterday a “conservative columnist” (as the NY Times’ ‘The Opinionator’ couched it) in Australia claimed al-Qaeda was defeated and Iraq was on the path of success – something I have been saying for months since the Iraq people rose up to destroy al-Qaeda for their brutal atrocities on the Iraqi Muslims. What is sadly funny is the left is ready to admit al-Qaeda is beaten, if we only rush out of Iraq in a panic and give al-Qaeda their final chance to win! Note to impatiently naive liberals: we were in the Philippines for decades – due to our success in WW II. Same thing with Japan. We are STILL in Korea due to our success in pushing back the North Koreans. We are STILL in Germany because of our success in WW II and bringing down the Soviet Iron Curtain.

The point is you don’t throw away the lives sacrificed by running away at the end before the stability and peace so hard-fought for is ready to take over. As to the offer from the ignorant liberal blogger to stand in Times Square, declare success and then run away and ensure defeat – forget about it. This is not about parties, it is about changing the course of humanity in a region that was heading for a death spiral (and a path to heaven based on the number of infidel bodies one could rack up). One wonders when the left will stop advertising their ignorance about dangerous situations. This is not a TV show where we can all be happy at the end of the show or episode. Their is no “Easy Button”.

Anyway, as I hope would happen serious journalists (you know, the ones trying to understand and communicate what is going on verses twist things so their frail egoes don’t have to face they were wrong about Iraq) are starting to look at Iraq and see….. success!

Is no news good news or bad news? In Iraq, it seems good news is deemed no news. There has been striking success in the past few months in the attempt to improve security, defeat al-Qaeda sympathisers and create the political conditions in which a settlement between the Shia and the Sunni communities can be reached. This has not been an accident but the consequence of a strategy overseen by General David Petraeus in the past several months. While summarised by the single word “surge” his efforts have not just been about putting more troops on the ground but also employing them in a more sophisticated manner. This drive has effectively broken whatever alliances might have been struck in the past by terrorist factions and aggrieved Sunnis. Cities such as Fallujah, once notorious centres of slaughter, have been transformed in a remarkable time.

Wow, from the way this reads you would think there would be some serious news here for a war weary world and American people.

Indeed, on every relevant measure, the shape of the Petraeus curve is profoundly encouraging. It is not only the number of coalition deaths and injuries that has fallen sharply (October was the best month for 18 months and the second-best in almost four years), but the number of fatalities among Iraqi civilians has also tumbled similarly. This process started outside Baghdad but now even the capital itself has a sense of being much less violent and more viable. As we report today, something akin to a normal nightlife is beginning to re-emerge in the city. As the pace of reconstruction quickens, the prospects for economic recovery will be enhanced yet further.

Actually, there are signs of normalcy everywhere. Usually defended by the oh-so-damn-obvious defenses to make sure al-Qaeda doesn’t get an easy shot to shed more Muslim blood and top the liberal news headlines again. Yes, there will be security in Iraq for some time, just as we still go through heightened airline security 6 years after 9-11. Letting one’s guard down is not smart, but it seems to be the one signal liberal media will accept as proof things are better. We ain’t going to go out and die just because the liberals have an emotionally high barn so they can face up to reality. They can stay naive and everyone else can stay alive. But I digress:

The current achievements, and they are achievements, are being treated as almost an embarrassment in certain quarters. The entire context of the contest for the Democratic nomination for president has been based on the conclusion that Iraq is an absolute disaster and the first task of the next president is to extricate the United States at maximum speed. Democrats who voted for the war have either repudiated their past support completely (John Edwards) or engaged in a convoluted partial retraction (Hillary Clinton). Congressional Democrats have spent most of this year trying (and failing) to impose a timetable for an outright exit. In Britain, in a somewhat more subtle fashion admittedly, Gordon Brown assumed on becoming the Prime Minister that he should send signals to the voters that Iraq had been “Blair’s War”, not one to which he or Britain were totally committed.

All of these attitudes have become outdated. There are many valid complaints about the manner in which the Bush Administration and Donald Rumsfeld, in particular, managed Iraq after the 2003 military victory. But not to recognise that matters have improved vastly in the year since Mr Rumsfeld’s resignation from the Pentagon was announced and General Petraeus was liberated would be ridiculous.

The admission of being so deadly wrong, to being the needless defeatists they truly are is why you will not see Dems address their mistakes. They were so serious they would remove the party from consideration on national defense for the next century. Funny thing is, not admitting it will only seal that same doomed fate of political oblivion when the situation on the ground in Iraq makes that conclusion (they were wrong about defeat in Iraq) clear to everyone. The left cannot avoid looking really, really bad on Iraq right now. The success is becoming to deep, too widespread to ignore.

And when the horror stories of al-Qaeda atrocities also come out, then Americans and the world will know those who prayed we would run away were simply enabling the humanity’s latest Holocaust. When the world looks back and Dems and the SurrenderMedia are seen as coming so close to helping al-Qaeda SUCCEED in their holocaust actions against the Muslims of Iraq, they will as admired in the West as al-Qaeda is right now in Anbar Province. They know this. They cannot stop it from happening either.

Addendum: It should be noted that even the Islamic Party of Iraq is declaring al-Qaeda defeated. It is just al-Qaeda and their liberal enablers who have failed to see the reality. The crime is in the leftist denying their previous calls of defeat were actually grievous errors. They continued hype on defeat kept al-Qaeda killing long past the time the Iraqis had begun to turn on al-Qaeda. The only reason al-Qaeda kept massacring Muslims was in hopes the US liberal media could pull American forces out before it was too late. And the US liberal media tried its hardest. They both failed to gain from the blood of Muslims in Iraq.