From Captain Ed:

It’s an interesting advance look at the Petraeus testimony due on September 11th. Combined with the announcement of an agreement among Iraq’s political factions on political reform, it will make a formidable case for continuing on the mission. Democrats will have a difficult time asking for retreat just when obvious progress can be seen.

Yes, they put all their chips on America’s defeat. But they’ve been playing a losing hand.

[Update in the afternoon]

Anyone who claims that “the surge” was a mistake should read this piece from the Times of London. My only complaint about it this sentence:

Captain Patriquin played a little-known but crucial role in one of the few American success stories of the Iraq war.

No, it’s not one of the “few” American success stories of the Iraq war. It’s just one of the few that you’ve actually reported.

To correspond with the what really happened, rather than the mythology believed on campus and by the media and the Democrats:

A…scathing critic of the VFW speech who held such views in 1975 is Stanley Karnow, author of an outdated but still widely read history of the Vietnam War. “The ‘loss’ of Cambodia,” Karnow said, would be “the salvation of the Cambodians.” Senator Christopher Dodd, then a member of the House, claimed in 1975, “The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is peace, not guns. And the best way to accomplish that goal is by ending military aid now.”

Well, we know how well that turned out.

In response to the President’s comments about abandoning Vietnam, some have argued that abandonment was not that important because Vietnam is now a nice capitalist country. This argument shows a callousness toward the loss of human life (in the late 1970s) and the harsh repression of political dissent (from 1975 to today) that is thoroughly out of keeping with how these people normally view international affairs. Hysterical hatred of the Iraq War and President Bush seems the only possible explanation for such an inconsistency. The present-day capitalist economy of Vietnam, moreover, is not reason to doubt the wisdom of U.S. involvement. Instead, it is reason to doubt the wisdom of North Vietnamese involvement. While America was fighting for capitalism in South Vietnam, North Vietnam was fighting to destroy it.

Can someone explain to me why we should be listening to these people now?

[Update a couple minutes later]

Of course there’s no Media Conspiracy™. They’re too incompetent to have a conspiracy.

They just guzzle their own bathwater.

And it’s apparently Saddam’s. At the UN headquarters. I guess it never occurred to the weapons inspectors to look there. Maybe it should have.

Yes, they’re the people to leave in charge of controlling WMD.

A very interesting, sophisticated (and guardedly optimistic) analysis of the current situation in Iraq.

To understand what follows, you need to realize that Iraqi tribes are not somehow separate, out in the desert, or remote: rather, they are powerful interest groups that permeate Iraqi society. More than 85% of Iraqis claim some form of tribal affiliation; tribal identity is a parallel, informal but powerful sphere of influence in the community. Iraqi tribal leaders represent a competing power center, and the tribes themselves are a parallel hierarchy that overlaps with formal government structures and political allegiances. Most Iraqis wear their tribal selves beside other strands of identity (religious, ethnic, regional, socio-economic) that interact in complex ways, rendering meaningless the facile division into Sunni, Shi

Kimberly Kagan has a dossier on the acts of war (mostly by proxie) that Iran has been committing against the US for at least the past five years. We may not be at war with Iran, but they’re certainly at war with us, regardless of how much many choose to ignore it.

[Update late morning]

Here’s a book that seems timely: Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots Quest For Destruction.

Michael Totten visits Al Qaeda’s newest lair in Iraq, because they’ve been chased out of their preferred locales.

Robert Spencer says that CAIR is having a bad week. Unfortunately, I doubt if the MSM will notice.

Robert Spencer says that CAIR is having a bad week. Unfortunately, I doubt if the MSM will notice.

Robert Spencer says that CAIR is having a bad week. Unfortunately, I doubt if the MSM will notice.

Michael Yon has a second installment of his “Ghosts of Anbar” series:

Some of these men will admit they were insurgents who switched sides because they realized that they are more likely to get what they want with a stable government. Al Qaeda promised them everything under the baking sun, yet al Qaeda killed people who smoked