Success in Iraq

>The Surge A Once Forlorn hope Now a big success
>By Ralph Peters
>As you read these lines, our troops are in the midst of Operation Phantom
Phoenix, a "mini-surge" to squeeze al Qaeda and its fast-dwindling band of allies
out of their few remaining safe havens in Iraq.
>Iraqi troops fight beside us against a common enemy. Vast swaths of the country
enjoy a newborn peace. Commerce thrives again. At the provincial and local
levels, the political progress has been remarkable.
>As for Operation Phantom Phoenix, our commanders expected terrorist dead-enders
to put up a fight. Instead, they ran,leaving behind only booby traps and disgust
among the Iraqis they tormented far too long.
>Well, they can run, but they can't hide. We dropped 20 tons of bombs on 40
terrorist targets yesterday, including safe houses, weapons caches and IED
factories. In a late-afternoon exchange with The Post, Gen. David Petraeus
characterized our current ops as "executing aggressively, pursuing tenaciously."
>The headlines at home? "Nine American Soldiers Killed." No mention of progress
or a fleeing enemy on the front pages. Just dead soldiers.
>Determined to elect a Democrat president, the"mainstream" media simply won't
accept our success."Impartial" journalists find a dark cloud in every silver
lining in Iraq. And the would-be candidates themselves continue to insist that we
should abandon Iraq immediately - as if time had stood still for the past year -
while hoping desperately for a catastrophe in Baghdad before November.
>These are the pols who insisted that the surge didn't have a chance. And nobody
calls 'em on it.
>Meanwhile, "Happy Birthday, Surge!"
>One year ago, "the surge" kicked off as a forlorn hope, our last chance to get
it right.
>The odds were against us. Terrorist violence was out of control. Baghdad was a
toxic wreck. Militias ruled, with ethnic cleansing rampant. And Iraq's
leaders couldn't even agree about which day of the week it was.
>We had never applied a coherent military or political policy in Iraq.Dithering
leaders, civilian and in uniform, squandered American and Iraqi lives. A unique
opportunity to jump start change in the Middle East had collapsed amid ideological
fantasies, a looting orgy for well-connected contractors and Washington's simple
unwillingness to really fight.
>Even the new US jefe maximo for Iraq, Petraeus,was a dark horse. He'd just
signed off on a counterinsurgency manual suggesting that the key to defeating
terrorists is to learn to pronounce Salaam aleikum (Peace be with you)properly.
>And then it all went right. Confounding Dems who expected him to preside over a
retreat, Petraeus took the fight to the enemy like a rat terrier on meth.
Jettisoning all the p.c. dogma, he turned out to be the first true warrior we put
in command in Iraq.
>Luck turned our way, too - and luck matters in war. Al Qaeda had managed to
alienate its erstwhile Sunni Arab allies in record time. Former insurgents
decided that the Great Satan America made a better dancing partner than Osama &
Co.
>Although analysts have missed it completely,the execution of Saddam Hussein
helped, too: It took away the rallying figure for Sunni hardliners and made it
easier for former insurgents to switch allegiance. The shock of Saddam's hanging
jarred Iraq's Sunni Arabs back to reality:Big Daddy with the mustache wasn't
coming back.
>Meanwhile, the rest of the population was just sick of the violence. The
merchant class wanted to get back to business. Tribal sheiks felt betrayed by
foreign terrorists. And mashallah! We had veteran commanders on the ground who
recognized the shifts underway in Iraqi society and capitalized on them.
>Petraeus manifested two stages of military genius: 1) He recognized exactly what
had to be done. 2) He didn't imagine he could do it all himself.
>Our new man in Baghdad had the wisdom to give subordinate commanders a long
leash when they caught a good scent.
>Without in any way detracting from Petraeus, the indispensable man, our
success this past year rested heavily upon field commanders far from the
flagpole having the savvy to realize that the local sheik just needed one last
bit of encouragement to jump sides.
>Oh, and the left turned out to be dead wrong,as usual. We hadn't created
an unlimited supply of terrorists. In fact, the supply turned out to be
very finite, to al Qaeda's chagrin. And killing themworked.
(One of the great untold stories of 2007 was the number of al Qaeda corpses.)
>And our former enemies have been killing them for us.
>Iraq still faces massive problems, of course. Thirty years of murderous
tyranny under Saddam followed by four years of Coalition fumbling left the
country a shambles. But Iraqis want it to get better.
>The military situation is well on the way to being under control. Now the
question is whether Iraq's leaders, especially those from the newly empowered
Shia, can put their country above their personal and parochial interests
(something that we don't expect of our own politicians these days).
>On our side, the immediate problem is that we lack diplomats as visionary and
capable as our soldiers. After almost a century, the Foggy Bottom fops still
can't see beyond a world gerrymandered by their European idols at Versailles.
>So here we are: The surge worked. It achieved all that we can expect of our
military. 2008 will tell us whether the politicians and diplomats, US and Iraqi,
can do their part.
>And a final note: The Post had over a week's advance warning of Operation
Phantom Phoenix, but didn't publish it. We don't share our nation's secrets
with our enemies.
>Ralph Peters' latest book is"Wars Of Blood And Faith."
> Ralph Peters, a retired Army Lt. Col., writes for the New York Post