Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com

Published - Sunday, September 16, 2007

Why not take yes for an answer?

By DANIEL GOURE / Arlington, Va.

For some people, particularly those adamantly opposed to the Iraq war, yes just is not a good enough answer.

Yes, the surge is working. Yes, the tribes of Anbar province have turned against al-Qaida and allied themselves with the U.S. Yes, the “Anbar transformation” is spreading to Diyala and Nineveh provinces. Yes, violence is down in Baghdad; the number of large IED attacks is way down. Yes, the Mahdi militia is splintered and discredited. Yes, the embassy has stood up multiple provincial reconstruction teams throughout the country. And yes, the Iraqis are working toward reconciliation, something that has never happened in Iraqi history.

U.S. forces are becoming adept at the kind of counterinsurgency warfare the situation in Iraq demands. They are deploying new capabilities to defeat the enemy. Officers down to the company level have already served tours in Iraq. This is not the same military that fought in that country from 2003 to 2006. Our military deserves a resounding yes.

The status of the Iraqi security forces is conditionally positive, a partial yes. The Iraqis continue to build their security forces and appear on a path to be able to take control of their country’s security in the next 12 to 18 months. According to Gen. David Petraeus, most Iraqi security force battalions can lead operations.

Were this not enough, Gen. Petraeus has presented a schedule for reducing U.S. forces in Iraq, beginning with an Army brigade and a Marine expeditionary Unit before the end of the year. According to Gen. Petraeus, the surge has produced sufficient positive results to warrant consideration of drawing down U.S. forces.

The Iraqi National Police, identified as a hotbed of sectarianism by the Jones Commission, is being cleaned up. Gen. Petraeus said that most of the senior officers have been replaced, at the direction of the Maliki government, I would note.

Yes, of course, is a conditional word. Final success depends on continuing progress in improving the security situation in Iraq, defeating al-Qaida, improving the daily lives of Iraqis and, of course, on further political reconciliation.

Unfortunately, a number of the reports that preceded the Petraeus/Crocker report took an absolute view toward evidence of progress. Either violence had to end totally and Iraqis had to reconcile completely, or the situation must be judged to be a failure.

As Ambassador Ryan Crocker pointed out in his testimony, benchmarks are a means toward reconciliation and political compromise; they are not ends in themselves. The effort to arrive at a solution, that is progress, albeit slower and more painfully pursued than anyone would like.

It was only this year, after eight decades of violence and struggle, that the IRA finally laid down their arms. This success came on the heels of a protracted security

campaign that began with a surge of British forces into Northern Ireland. Was the previous period of time a failure

or a process? Let’s also remember that the Irish Catholics and Protestants had no better history of reconciliation than do Iraq Sunnis and Shias.

It is fascinating that is the same people who beat the administration about the head and shoulders for not deploying sufficient forces or listening to the generals — I count my interlocutor among them — now advocate reducing forces and ignoring the general in charge.

The opponents of the surge have lost the security argument.

Moreover, in the face of dramatic changes on the ground in Anbar and even within the halls of the Iraqi government, they have lost the political argument, too.

Opposition to the Bush administration is not a sufficient reason to ignore what is now happening in Iraq. People of good conscience must now thrice answer yes. Yes to staying in Iraq, yes to supporting Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, and yes to completing the moral, spiritual and political liberation of the people of Iraq.

Daniel Goure is vice president of the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington, Va.