Thursday, July 17, 2008

Call it

Yep.

Michael Yon calls it.
The war continues to abate in Iraq. Violence is still present, but, of course, Iraq was a relatively violent place long before Coalition forces moved in. I would go so far as to say that barring any major and unexpected developments (like an Israeli air strike on Iran and the retaliations that would follow), a fair-minded person could say with reasonable certainty that the war has ended. A new and better nation is growing legs. What's left is messy politics that likely will be punctuated by low-level violence and the occasional spectacular attack. Yet, the will of the Iraqi people has changed, and the Iraqi military has dramatically improved, so those spectacular attacks are diminishing along with the regular violence. Now it's time to rebuild the country, and create a pluralistic, stable and peaceful Iraq. That will be long, hard work. But by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won.
Michael J. Totten calls it.
The war in Iraq is all but over right now, and it will be officially over if the current trends in violence continue their downward slide. That is a mathematical fact.
Fair.
There is still hard work to be done. Still more blood and treasure, in smaller amounts, that needs to be invested - but the tipping point is past. We can still screw this up - but from feeling like Gandamak to here was a long and sometimes lonely path for those who remained focused on victory in Iraq.

Now we need to look a little, no a lot, closer at AFG - which BTW the US military is already months ahead of the politicians, pundits, and media on. You will have to trust me on this. South Asia needs a lot of work - and we need to do it without crushing the post-culmination NATO alliance forces there either.

Keep pushing.
UPDATE: Greyhawk and Rusty see it too.

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