There is a growing confidence among officers, diplomats, and politicians that a constitutional Iraq is going to make it. We don't hear much anymore of trisecting the country, much less pulling all American troops out in defeat.Critics of the war now argue that a victory in Iraq was not worth the costs, not that victory was always impossible. The worst terrorist leaders, like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Muqtada al-Sadr, are either dead or in hiding.
The 2007 surge, the Anbar Awakening of tribal sheiks against al-Qaeda, the change to counterinsurgency tactics, the vast increase in the size and competence of the Iraqi Security Forces, the sheer number of enemy jihadists killed between 2003 and 2008, the unexpected political savvy of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and the magnetic leadership of Gen. David Petraeus have all contributed to a radically improved Iraq.