Michael Yon is in the zone

"Iraqi kids that have not been spoiled by handouts are the funniest I have seen anywhere." - Michael Yon

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Michael Yon is providing unparalleled reporting, pictures, and analysis on his website. No one can touch him. He is like a comet streaking across the sky, showing the way for any who wish to follow.

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Something is shifting in Iraq. The good guys are succeeding in ways they never have before. I sense it from Yon, David Kilcullen, Johannes, Iraq the Model, Frederic Kagan and Kimberly Kagan - and even, sometimes, the MSM. Here's what I think is happening.

1. Iraqis are finally figuring out that we want to help them and then go home. That we would want such a thing was a foreign concept to Iraqis for a long time. The idea of it goes against everything they know.


2. Al Qaeda have shown themselves to be barbarous and oppressive murderers. Iraqis want Al Qaeda gone.


3. Some of the Iraqi Army - approx. 5000 troops - are operational and effective soldiers. They allow America to succeed in urban areas in a way we never could before. When the Iraqi Army units go into neighborhoods, they instantly know which are the bad guys. That's a big change for the better.


4. The Surge - fully underway only since June 20 - is the first time America has gone on offense against Al Qaeda in a comprehensive way.

Prior to the Surge, America was merely keeping a lid on things and hoping time would work its magic. That did not work. We created a power vacuum, and Al Qaeda and Iran rushed in. Now, finally, seriously and for real, we are on offense. We are not targeting one town. We are, for the first time, comprehensively targeting Al Qaeda all across Iraq. America has brilliant offensive military strategists. When we seriously, comprehensively, offensively target an enemy for destruction, that enemy is in peril.

Re: #1 above, Michael Yon:

For many Iraqis, we have morphed from being invaders to occupiers to members of a tribe. I call it the “al Ameriki tribe,” or “tribe America.”

I’ve seen this kind of progression in Mosul, out in Anbar and other places, and when I ask our military leaders if they have sensed any shift, many have said, yes, they too sense that Iraqis view us differently. In the context of sectarian and tribal strife, we are the tribe that people can—more or less and with giant caveats—rely on.

Most Iraqis I talk with acknowledge that if it was ever about the oil, it’s not now. Not mostly anyway. It clearly would have been cheaper just to buy the oil or invade somewhere easier that has more. Similarly, most Iraqis seem now to realize that we really don’t want to stay here, and that many of us can’t wait to get back home. They realize that we are not resolved to stay, but are impatient to drive down to Kuwait and sail away. And when they consider the Americans who actually deal with Iraqis every day, the Iraqis can no longer deny that we really do want them to succeed. But we want them to succeed without us. We want to see their streets are clean and safe, their grass is green, and their birds are singing. We want to see that on television. Not in person. We don’t want to be here. We tell them that every day. It finally has settled in that we are telling the truth.

Now that all those realizations and more have settled in, the dynamics here are changing in palpable ways.

Something dramatic has shifted. A lot of positives are meshing together right at this moment. The Iraqi Government is closing in on a deal about how to distribute Iraq's oil wealth to the various Iraqi Provinces. That agreement will be a HUGE moment in Iraqi history. Synergy.

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In war, tipping points go past without immediate notice. Only in retrospect can historians look back and say, for instance "Yes, after that the outcome was a foregone conclusion, even though the war continued another 18 months."

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I believe the tipping point has passed in Iraq: the Iraqi Government can stand. A free Persian/Arabian/Kurdish nation can stand in the Arabian Peninsula. It can be a tottering, swaying, drunken beacon on a hill -- which would be a miraculous, historic, and inspiring thing.

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The good guys can win. Iraq can stand strong enough to overcome Al Qaeda, Iran, Syria, Tribal backwardness, 6th Century fundamentalism, cultural atrophy, and national structural neglect and then decimation --

IF the American Congress doesn't declare pre-emptive defeat.

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Dems have maneuvered into a position where Iraq success means near-term ruination for the Democratic Party. Dems CANNOT allow Iraq success to happen. Dems care less about Iraq success than about Dem political power, and Dem ability to project left-side ideology, and Dem ability to protect the nation from Repub/right ideology. Dems rationalize that Iraq is not part of the war against Islamic fundamentalism - except when Iraq actually hurts us by creating more fundamentalists who hate us. OF COURSE Dems (with help from weak kneed Repubs) will sacrifice the Iraqi savages to the greater causes of Dem political power and leftist ideology. Dems will do that, and they will be righteous about it as they do so.

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Maybe the only thing which can forestall the sell-out is a citizen driven clamor such as we saw in the Immigration Bill debate. I don't know if conditions exist for such a clamor to occur. I hope they do. So do Iraqis - many of whom face a death sentence if the Dems and the weak-kneed Repubs sell them out.

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One other occurance could forestall a Congressional sell-out: Joe Lieberman joining the Republican Party, combined with zero Repubs - such as Susan Collins of Maine - countering Lieberman's move by then switching to the Democratic Party. Lieberman's shift would put Repubs in control of the Senate. Therefore, resolutions to de-fund OIF would never be brought to the floor to be voted on.