Turnaround in Baghdad?

From within the U.S. governments opposition to the Iraq front in the greater war on terror, we receive comments like this from Chuck Hagel (at CNN):

"There is no strategy. This is a pingpong game with American lives. These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad are not beans; they're real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder." - Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-NE

Not terribly inspiring unless your inspiration is derived from our defeat.

Yet this mornings New York Sun has an opinion piece that turns the oppositions arguments and statements on it's head. Granted, this is an opinion piece, that said however, Hagel and others comments are opinion as well.

Why do we not read/see more news of this kind? Would it balance the arguments too much?

From the New York Sun (a no less appropriate argument toward victory):

"The wider Sunni insurgency — the groups beyond Al Qaeda — is being slowly, and surely, defeated. The average insurgent today feels demoralized, disillusioned, and hunted. Those who have not been captured yet are opting for a quieter life outside of Iraq. Al Qaeda continues to grow for the time being as it cannibalizes the other insurgent groups and absorbs their most radical and hardcore fringes into its fold. The Baathists, who had been critical in spurring the initial insurgency, are becoming less and less relevant, and are drifting without a clear purpose following the hanging of their idol, Saddam Hussein. Rounding out this changing landscape is that Al Qaeda itself is getting a serious beating as the Americans improve in intelligence gathering and partner with more reliable Iraqi forces."

"In other words, battling the insurgency now essentially means battling Al Qaeda. This is a major accomplishment."

"Last October, my sources began telling me about rumblings among the insurgent strategists suggesting that their murderous endeavor was about to run out of steam. This sense of fatigue began registering among mid-level insurgent commanders in late December, and it has devolved to the rank and file since then. The insurgents have begun to feel that the tide has turned against them."

Read the rest here

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