If you look at the graphs posted by Roggio below, it’s obvious that the every metric for gaging progress in Iraq is going in the right direction–attacks are down, American and Iraqi casualties are down, car bombs are down, and IEDs have become nonexistent in some parts of the country. General Odierno says that Iraq is at its quietest since 2004, but there’s one major difference:
Meanwhile, al Qaeda has stooped to new lows in its propaganda. This from the Zawahiri tape:
In just one year, al Qaeda has gone from making threats against American forces and the Iraqi government to making threats against the Sunni tribes of Iraq–which, if al Qaeda is to have any success, must be the the group’s base of support. But the leaders of those tribes are not going to purge their ranks of “collaborators and traitors,” which makes such rhetoric further reinforcement for the status quo–collaboration with U.S. forces and the Iraqi government against al Qaeda. Still, there is a real threat that the U.S. military will become a victim of its own success. As the Washington Post reports, “Bush faces pressure to shift war priorities”:
There’s no doubt that Afghanistan has become, in many ways, a more problematic conflict than the war in Iraq. The Taliban has been resurgent for some time, and casualties are on the increase while Coalition partners, who make a far greater contribution in Afghanistan than in Iraq (faint praise), are going wobbly. But the war in Afghanistan is not in any danger of spiraling out of control–it’s a slow-motion disaster, and there’s still plenty of time left to make the necessary adjustments and regain the initiative. In Iraq, on the other hand, violence is down and al Qaeda is on the run. Shifting the focus to Afghanistan now would only repeat the mistakes of the past. Better to finish what’s been started in Iraq, and then deal with the Afghan problem.
