Parts of Iraq starting turning around in the fall of ’06 when Sunnis finally had enough of al-Qaeda’s bloody brutality and starting switching sides to fight with the US against the Islamo Facists. This turn of events (not the US election in 2006, which just happened to coincidentally happen at the same time) presented the opportunity for the Military and Bush administration to leverage of this new dynamic. They put together a plan in late 2006 – early 2007 to maximize and maintain the changes in Anbar, and to attempt to use the example in Baghdad. This is today known as “The Surge”.

The Democrats fought the surge for many months and over 40 votes in Congress. But Bush and the Pentagon went ahead (and Congress funded) the Surge. In the late Spring of ’07 as the Surge build up was progressing that the terrorists were being chased out of Anbar at an alarming rate. The Sunni uprising with US support was devastating. Al-Qaeda moved their operations to Diyala province and set up shop there. The US adjusted their strategy again and expanded the footprint of The Surge to now include Diyala.

When that happened and the Surge was in place and went full active events in Iraq began to snowball. Few people here in the US noticed because (a) the SurrenderMedia was blacking out all positive news and (b) the trend seemed too good to be true. I was one of those not so resistant to the changes – and I am sure many of my readers cringed with my bold and optimistic predictions.

Well it took 5 months of amazing progress in Iraq before the news media finally lifted their black out and started reporting the good news. And only recently have those Americans who did not follow events in Iraq closely start to see progress (again with the hesitancy that it may be too good to be true).

The reason for this longwinded lead into the latest Gallup numbers is for people to note the time delay that is now running between events in Iraq and public opinion responding. The Surge is, in some ways, over a year in and people are just now grasping its successes. So with that time lag in mind, check out the latest numbers and history in Gallup’s poll showing ever increasing positive views on Iraq among Americans.

Expect to see these numbers continue to drift more positive over the coming months. Public opinion is normally a lagging indicator, but the SurrenderMedia’s attempt to cover up the progress has made this lag much longer than normal.

Since August, more Americans have tended to say the surge is making the situation in Iraq better rather than worse, but today’s ratio — 40% vs. 20% — is the most positive yet recorded. Thirty-nine percent of Americans currently say the surge is not making any difference; this is down from 43% in September and 51% in July.

But there is another surprise in the numbers, one both the far right and far left need to appreciate. Gallup is showing that the majority of independents consider themselves CONSERVATIVES. It is not called out in the report but clear as day to folks familiar with statistics. It is in the political breakdown section. Gallup slices the numbers two ways – by party (Rep, Dem, Indie) and then by political spectrum (Con, Mod, Lib). Here are the numbers in the first cut:

Currently, 18% of Democrats say the surge is making the situation in Iraq better, no different from the 19% saying this last month. Republican attitudes on the question have remained about the same [from 62% to 68%]. The upward movement in positive reviews has come mostly from political independents[from 27% to 42%].

I added the numbers from the graphs so people could see the change. Now Gallup tries to show it across the spectrum and the numbers change: Cons are 60% positive, moderates 31% and liberal 15%. the only way for the independent number to be high while the moderate number is low is for the independent number to contain a lot more conservatives than non-conservatives. This is important for the 2008 election. It means the democrats will destroy their chances by placating to the far left, anti-war base. But it also means the GOP cannot afford to play to its far right base too much either. A governing Conservative Coalition clearly still exists, Gallup’s numbers make that clear. But it needs to be healed, which means those not so far right deserve respect from those who are.