The War is over, and We won

So blares the headline of this piece by Karl Zinsmeister appearing in The American Enterprise. At first glance, such seems out-of-place given what else we see and hear reported about Iraq here in the early summer of 2005.

Zinsmeister's thesis is actually pretty simple and straight-forward: Your editor returned to Iraq in April and May of 2005 for another embedded period of reporting. I could immediately see improvements compared to my earlier extended tours during 2003 and 2004. The Iraqi security forces, for example, are vastly more competent, and in some cases quite inspiring. Baghdad is now choked with traffic. Cell phones have spread like wildfire. And satellite TV dishes sprout from even the most humble mud hovels in the countryside.

Many of the soldiers I spent time with during this spring had also been deployed during the initial invasion back in 2003. Almost universally they talked to me about how much change they could see in the country. They noted progress in the attitudes of the people, in the condition of important infrastructure, in security.

In otherwords, things are better when the mundane things of life are in full bloom. After all, do people really worry about satellite TV, cell phones and the like when their lives are in direct danger?

I used to argue this with the usual suspects vis-a-vis the insurgency and the security situation in Iraq. I wonder still whether it provides a reliable metric by which you can measure the situation. Zinsmeister, however, does not:

What the establishment media covering Iraq have utterly failed to make clear today is this central reality: With the exception of periodic flare-ups in isolated corners, our struggle in Iraq as warfare is over. Egregious acts of terror will continue—in Iraq as in many other parts of the world. But there is now no chance whatever of the U.S. losing this critical guerilla war.

Contrary to the impression given by most newspaper headlines, the United States has won the day in Iraq. In 2004, our military fought fierce battles in Najaf, Fallujah, and Sadr City. Many thousands of terrorists were killed, with comparatively little collateral damage. As examples of the very hardest sorts of urban combat, these will go down in history as smashing U.S. victories.

And our successes at urban combat (which, scandalously, are mostly untold stories in the U.S.) made it crystal clear to both the terrorists and the millions of moderate Iraqis that the insurgents simply cannot win against today’s U.S. Army and Marines. That’s why everyday citizens have surged into politics instead.

Zinsmeister acknowledges the obvious about what he terms terrorist attacks, but makes a firm statement about the eventual outcome--in spite of the insurgents: The terrorist struggle has hardly ended. Even a very small number of vicious men operating in secret will find opportunities to blow up outdoor markets and public buildings, assassinate prominent political figures, and knock down office towers. But public opinion is not on the insurgents’ side, and the battle of Iraq is no longer one of war fighting—but of policing and politics.

On that, I believe, he is 100% correct. The January elections served to repudiate the insurgents and their philosophy, such as it is. With no political position put forth, the jihadi's could not claim any sort of legitimacy in the political process. That the elections occurred without major disruptions and with reasonably high turnout points to the population's desire for political solutions. Further proof is seen in recent agreements aimed at more involvement in the political process for the Sunni's.

Austin Bay recently made similar observations upon his recent return to Iraq (though with the honest caveat that recognizes the realistic ongoing threat): Last year, Haifa Street was a combat zone where US and Iraqi security forces showed up in Robo-Cop garb -- helmets, armor, Bradleys, armored Humvees. Horst told me that he and his Iraqi counterpart now have tea in a sidewalk cafe along the once notorious boulevard. Of course, Abu Musab al Zarqawi's suicide bombers haunt this fragile calm.

Is the mundane an accurate measurement of progress in Iraq? Difficult to say with any certainty, but I believe there is merit to the idea. After all, if I'm in mortal fear for my life am I going to run out and buy up the latest luxury?