Senator Kerry claims that Iraq is in chaos, that the president is botching it so badly that Kerry has no idea what he will find when he takes office in January. He may, he claims, find that Iraq is another Lebanon, and so on. Yet everything we read coming out of that country, except what we read in the MSM, suggests that the Senator simply doesn't know what he's talking about. This is understandable, of course, since he never attends the meetings of the Intelligence Committee he serves on, but it's not excusable.
There is much news from Iraq which indicates that things are going much better there than the Senator would have us believe. One such story at National Review Online concerns the quality of Iraqi troops which are daily growing more competent, more effective and more numerous. Consider these excerpts:
The enthusiasm of U.S. Marine captains Thomas "Tad" Douglas and David Nevers can hardly be contained. Their voices, alternately crackling over a weak satellite-phone connection, are heartening as they describe the successes they are witnessing in Iraq. The insurgency is losing ground. Iraqi civilians, feeling less afraid than in previous months, are increasingly coming forward with solid information about the bad guys. And a new Iraqi special-operations force is taking the lead in wiping out guerilla strongholds, south of Baghdad.
From their operating base in Kalsu...Douglas tells National Review Online, "The Iraqis are performing well-above my expectations. Their strengths are their aggressiveness and mobility, and we are enhancing those strengths."
"This is an emerging force, and yet they are taking the lead in our operations against the insurgents," says Nevers. "We conducted an operation a month ago in which this force did most of the planning and then physically led the way. The operation was very successful, and it consequently set the stage for what we are doing right now."
Asked if those on the team are more-formidable fighters than the best Iraqi troops faced by U.S. forces during the spring 2003 invasion, Nevers is quick to respond, "Yes, and they are far better than the Iraqis we were contending with in April 2004 [during the brutal fighting in and around Fallujah and Ramadi]."
Speaking of Iraq, there is another helpful article on the conditions in Fallujah in the Washington Post (free registration may be required). Evidently, the American tactic of wearing down the insurgents in that city is paying dividends by setting the various groups against each other, and the foreigners are feeling both the heat and the fear.
Local insurgents in the city of Fallujah are turning against the foreign fighters who have been their allies in the rebellion that has held the U.S. military at bay in parts of Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland, according to Fallujah residents, insurgent leaders and Iraqi and U.S. officials.
Relations are deteriorating as local fighters negotiate to avoid a U.S.-led military offensive against Fallujah, while foreign fighters press to attack Americans and their Iraqi supporters. The disputes have spilled over into harsh words and sporadic violence, with Fallujans killing at least five foreign Arabs in recent weeks, according to witnesses.
U.S. and Iraqi authorities together have insisted that if Fallujah is to avoid an all-out assault aimed at regaining control of the city, foreign fighters must be ejected. Several local leaders of the insurgency say they, too, want to expel the foreigners, whom they scorn as terrorists. They heap particular contempt on Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian whose Monotheism and Jihad group has asserted responsibility for many of the deadliest attacks across Iraq, including videotaped beheadings.
"He is mentally deranged, has distorted the image of the resistance and defamed it. I believe his end is near," Abu Abdalla Dulaimy, military commander of the First Army of Mohammad, said.
One of the foreign guerrillas killed by local fighters was Abu Abdallah Suri, a Syrian and a prominent member of Zarqawi's group. Suri's body was discovered Sunday. He was shot in the head and chest while being chased by a carload of tribesmen, according to a security guard who said he witnessed the killing.
One way or another Fallujah will be pacified by the end of November as will be Ramadi and Sadr City. Elections will be held and foreign corporations, eager to get a chunk of Iraq's oil wealth, will stream into the country to further hasten reconstruction. This will drive the left in this country to near hysteria, not only because George Bush will be largely vindicated and given the credit, and the judgment and motives of the left will be indicted, but also because once Iraq is stabilized, the attention of the world, i.e. the U.S., will perforce turn toward Iran's nuclear program. If Iraq begins to settle as November draws to a close, look for the left to employ every play in their playbook in a desperate attempt to preempt military action against Iran should it be deemed necessary.
Moreover, if Bush is re-elected in a couple of weeks look for the French, Germans, and Russians to join the coalition against Iran. They will seek to redeem themselves after their disgraceful behavior in Iraq, where they accepted bribes from Saddam in exchange for thwarting the American demarche. Unless, of course, they're also accepting bribes from the mullahs in Tehran.