We have learned the following from two different news outlets this morning. The first, from the Associated Press, is that U.S. military deaths in September (63) were the lowest monthly toll since July 2006. The second is that civilian deaths from violence across Iraq fell by 50 percent in September from the previous month—to the lowest level recorded this year, according to information provided by the Health, Interior and Defense Ministries (884 civilians were killed in September, down from 1,773 in August).
This is more confirmation that the Petraeus strategy is working and that we might be witnessing one of the more remarkable comebacks in American military history. Iraq, a nation that a year ago was sliding toward civil war, is now considerably calmer and considerably safer. Al Qaeda is absorbing tremendous body blows. We and the Iraqis continue to reclaim territory that was once lost.
None of this means we’re home free, or that the tide can’t shift the other way, or that victory is now easily within our reach. Iraq remains a fragile, traumatized nation, and we face enemies (al Qaeda in Iraq, Iran and Syria, and insurgents) who are cunning and relentless.
At the same time, this news is encouraging. Serious mistakes of past years—too few troops with the wrong mission, Rumsfeld’s reluctance to engage in nation-building, slowness to pick up on and confront the insurgency, and a failure to provide order to Iraq in the aftermath of major combat operations—are being repaired. Adjustments have been made—and we can now reasonably hope for a decent outcome in Iraq.
General Petraeus asked for more time—and it’s now clear that he deserves it, and more. And the effort by MoveOn.org to smear General Petraeus, always contemptible, now looks politically insane.
It is also more clear than ever that President Bush, in the face of ferocious pressure earlier this year, including from his own party, to wind down the Iraq war, showed enormous political courage in moving ahead with the new strategy (more troops armed with a different mission). And it is just as clear that the effort by leading Democrats like Majority Leader Harry Reid and so many others to declare the surge a failure even before it was fully in place looks weirdly premature and massively irresponsible. Democrats and antiwar critics planted their flag earlier on, wagering that the war in Iraq was irredeemably lost—and they have maintained that stance ever since, even as the news has gotten undeniably better. Now Democrats, deeply invested in a narrative of defeat, need to adjust their stance to conform to reality. If they don’t make this adjustment soon there should be, and there will be, a heavy price to pay.
McGovernism and “Come Home, America,” which remained political liabilities for Democrats decades after they entered the political scene, will return once again, and with similar results. That may not be clear now (it wasn’t clear in 1972, either, when the Vietnam War was deeply unpopular), but it will become more clear with the passage of time. Being advocates of defeat in a war, especially when the war seems to be going our way, is not a wise place for a major American political party to be. Americans want to win this war—and for the first time in a long time, there are grounds for real hope. Surely members of both parties can agree on that. Can’t they?
