Bush Right After All?

[Rodion Romanovich]

It's hardly "the surge", but the complete change of strategy in other aspects, especially in how to try and communicate, understand and cooperate with the locals, which has made the difference, and it would most likely have worked wonders even without a "surge". So the answer to your question is no. As for the final outcome, there's much left to do, and it's a little bit too early to cheer, however the current situation seems promising if the continuation takes advantage of the now arising opportunities. The whole oil stuff in Iraq hardly makes the Iraqis like the occupying forces even now, but now they're at least trying to and successfully managing to become more popular than the crazy random civilian bombers, which makes a big difference to their amount of success. The future of Iraq and Iraqi-American and Iraqi-British relations is still unknown.