Powerline reveals a third reason that the changes in Mesopotamia are not primarily driven by "the surge".
What is "working" are Muslims, frankly:
Similarly, Sheikh Abd Al-‘Aziz bin Abdallah Aal Al-Sheikh, the highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, issued a fatwa late last year prohibiting Saudi youth from engaging in jihad abroad. It states: “I urge my brothers the ulama [the top class of Muslim clergy] to clarify the truth to the public . . . to warn [youth] of the consequences of being drawn to arbitrary opinions and [religious] zeal that is not based on religious knowledge.” Around the same time, Sheikh Salman al-Awdah, an influential Saudi cleric whom bin Laden once lionised, wrote an “open letter” condemning bin Laden. “Brother Osama, how much blood has been spilt? How many innocents among children, elderly, the weak, and women have been killed and made homeless in the name of al-Qaeda?” Sheikh Awdah wrote. “The ruin of an entire people, as is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq . . . cannot make Muslims happy.”
This joins al-Sadr's declared "truce" and the "Sons of Anbar" initiatives, neither of which had anything to do with the military (or with John McCain's Vietnam-era experience with "the enemy"), as the prime factors behind the larger turns in events.
You can throw in the pass off to the United Nations of the reconciliation piece of the violent, prolonged GOP Nation Building exercise, if you want, too.
Sure, give great credit to the fighting forces, but to suggest that all of what is being achieved is the result of the US military is pure distortion.
