PETRAEUS

Posted at 7:06 a.m. ET

The sense of frustration in some some elements of the media is obvious, but the fact is that we're winning in Iraq.  Even The New York Times has acknowledged that.  The shrinks may now have to decide how to treat the depression among left-leaning journalists.  It's part of the risk, I guess, of entering a trade where things don't always go the way the government professors at Berkeley thought they would.  But facts have a way of getting out. The Times, in a good reporting job, interviewed one of the great Americans of our time, General David Petraeus, and got this accounting of where we are: 

General Petraeus is preparing to leave Iraq a remarkably safer place than it was when he arrived. Violence has plummeted from its apocalyptic peaks, Iraqi leaders are asserting themselves, and streets that once seemed dead are flourishing with life. The worst, for now, has been averted.

Will the reporter go to journalistic purgatory for writing that?

And so in the general’s exhaustion comes the glimmer of hope, and also a caveat: Iraq has indeed stepped back from self-destruction, General Petraeus said, but the gains are tenuous and unlikely to survive without an American effort that outlasts his tenure.

Memo to Senator Obama:  You copy that?

The surge, clearly, has worked, at least for now: violence, measured in the number of attacks against Americans and Iraqis each week, has dropped by 80 percent in the country since early 2007, according to figures the general provided. Civilian deaths, which peaked at more than 100 a day in late 2006, have also plunged. Car and suicide bombings, which stoked sectarian violence, have fallen from a total of 130 in March 2007 to fewer than 40 last month. In July, fewer Americans were killed in Iraq — 13 — than in any month since the war began.

The result, now visible in the streets, is a calm unlike any the country has seen since the American invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in April 2003. The signs — Iraqi families flooding into parks at sundown, merchants throwing open long-shuttered shops — are stunning to anyone who witnessed the country’s implosion in 2005 and 2006.

The reporter should be commended for being honest about it.  I wish we'd had that forthrightness during Vietnam, where the press got away with outrageous misreporting.

The question of America’s continued commitment is likely to be taken up immediately by the new president, whoever he is, when he moves into the White House in January. General Petraeus suggested he had some details in mind, but did not think them appropriate to discuss publicly. “I can,” he said, “but I won’t.”

“The only statement I think somebody in a position like this can responsibly make is that it obviously depends on the conditions and how much risk one is willing to take,” General Petraeus said, referring to the next president.

Wise man.  I suspect President McCain will listen to him.  President Obama has already hinted that he has larger concepts in mind, and may not.  Mr. Obama's military thoughts are very deep.

General Petraeus will now lead Central Command, responsible for Afghanistan as well as Iraq.  He has done a remarkable job.  Where is the parade?

August 21, 2008.