The Discerning Texan

Pelosi’s gaffe is mind boggling. Being able to find time to meet and drink tea with the Syrian thug President Assad but brushing off a briefing with America’s own Iraq Commander General Petraeus is a juxtaposition of priorities that is too delicious not to use. The idea that the defeatists are living a variation of the Three Wise Monkeys by "seeing no progress, hearing no progress, and speaking no progress” when it comes to Iraq reveals a nervousness about some of the news that is breaking through all the stories about car bombings and suicide attacks, which are down in number but not much in the casualties; the fact that some of the indicators regarding the violence are improving less than 3 months into the surge.

In truth, the Democrats and the left have already left the surge for dead. No matter what news comes out of Iraq, the Democrats will spin it to prove that the strategy is not working. Unfortunately, this will be relatively easy to do since the insurgents and terrorists are very obliging in working hand in hand with the defeatists in Congress to undermine the President’s strategy by getting as big a bang for their buck with each brutal attack on innocent civilians as they can.

Of course, other elements of the new strategy not totally dependent on the military are showing signs of success. The reconstruction teams whose numbers have doubled and who have already begun working with tribal leaders to turn the tide in Anbar Province have met with many small but significant successes. This is reflected in a growing realization by Sunnis that they are likely to get a better political deal if the Americans stay rather than if our troops are withdrawn, leaving them in the lurch:

Meanwhile, opponents of the Iraqi operations back in the United States are getting nervous about the success of the security operations in Baghdad and its suburbs. The fact that nearly all the Sunni Arab tribes have joined the government is seen as a political disaster by many U.S. politicians who have declared Iraq a failed venture for the United States. It’s a bizarre situation, and long has been. You only have to visit web sites frequented by Iraqis or American troops, to see that what is reported in most of the media about Iraq is invented, or distorted beyond all reason into an alternate reality.

This “alternate reality” lived in by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi is aided and abetted by a compliant news media who appears to be too lazy to balance coverage of bloody body counts with other aspects of the surge that show some signs of progress. ...