Improvement in Iraq

[Xiahou]

At the risk of speaking too soon, I'd say it's largely to do with Petraeus being a genius. He quite literally wrote the book on counter-insurgencies.

People seem to realize that many of the insurgents in Iraq are not fighting for the people of Iraq but for their own cause. And not only seem people to realize that - they also start to act on this realization.

That's a good start, but without the ability to capitalize on these sentiments, they wouldn't get us far. Originally, I was skeptical of a surge since it seemed just to be throwing more troops at the problem and only making more targets. However, as I read more of the specifics (as they were released to the public) about what was actually being done, I became more optimistic. So far, the results have been tough to argue with.

The only shame is that it took us this long to get to this point. I think if we had the right people in charge over there sooner, we'd be years ahead of the game.