Thanks for the hat tip. I'd love it if these two articles got really wide distribution, because I think they're very important, and your blog is a big part of the distribution chain.

YIKES! It's a bit early to start declaring victory.

As someone who has read about 250 pages of the 488 page Army Field Manual on COIN, we've got a loooong way to go.

There is NO DOUBT (none nada zero zip none) that the new doctrine is WORKING. Calling the war over and won is just silly.

We have now returned Iraq to the level of violence it was about 12 (horrible) months ago. Nobody called the war won then.

Now... I am sorta of the opinion that the outcome is a foregone conclusion. (I read the last chapter and we won ;-) I believe the new doctrine is the roadmap to victory....

But we're below half a tank of gas and there are a lot of potholes ahead. (metaphor alert)

Yes, excellent stuff, and thanks, bw. Why did so many Republicans vote with the Democrats? That vote in your update is pretty lopsided.
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KeithC should read the links. I'm curious how he'd comment.
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This whole phony soldier business is turning, thankfully, into a 'Who's a Patriot?' slugfest. Gloriously, we can all claim that, and the title of 'Who didn't lose Iraq'.
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Critics of the war have at least had a positive impact by pressuring the administration and military leaders into changing strategy and reducing the unacceptably high number of U.S. and Iraqi deaths. Certainly if early peacekeeping efforts to restore order to Iraq would have worked, then so much opposition to the war would not have builded among the U.S. public. About the only way that the administration can buy more time for the continued high profile U.S. role in Iraq with the majority of the U.S. public is to continue to show progress that reduces Iraq as a primary hot button issue.

Note Bartle Bull is in the OpinionJournal, today.
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The biggest, in fact most likely the only impact "critics" of the war have had was to give Al Qaeda and the insurgents hope for victory (Reid: "The war...is lost") and a reason to keep up the killings of innocent civilians so the "critics" could gleefully report the numbers to average Americans in an attempt to demoralize the American public in the hope that it would cause enough political pressure that the government would give up and allow Al Qaeda to claim victory over America.

Anyone who thinks thinks the administration and military planners changed strategy because of the "critics" is an imbicile. They changed stategy because, while victory is the only acceptable outcome, we are trying things that have never been tried before and have been constantly changing strategy to achieve the inevitable victory that the "critics" fear.

The "critics", like Hooson, fear an American victory because it will cause them to loose power and thus be a major setback to the neo-communist takeover of America.

Critics of the war have at least had a positive impact by pressuring the administration and military leaders into changing strategy and reducing the unacceptably high number of U.S. and Iraqi deaths.

Whining, pissing, moaning, hating, vile anti-American, anti-troop rhetoric, political grandstanding with non-binding resolutions, repeatedly calling the war "lost" or a "civil war" and God knows what else, NONE OF IT comes even CLOSE to having a "positive impact". You wouldn't know positive if it came up and bit you in the ass.

Certainly if early peacekeeping efforts to restore order to Iraq would have worked, then so much opposition to the war would not have builded among the U.S. public.

Is English a first or second language for you? Thank you for your Monday-morning quarterbacking there, too, General. That's really profound and deep thinking on your part.

About the only way that the administration can buy more time for the continued high profile U.S. role in Iraq with the majority of the U.S. public is to continue to show progress that reduces Iraq as a primary hot button issue.

What kind of crap-tastic analysis is this? And would you believe the progress if it turned out to be positive? Or would you join your fellow moonbats in spinning any positive news as being some sort of political ruse by the Bush Admin.? Hmmm, what is it your REALLY want to say here? Say what you really mean before I get accused of allegedly making strawman arguments.

I've never heard of Bartle Bull before, but I just finished reading the article to which Lorie linked and while it's interesting and encouraging in ways, it seemed pretty clear to me that he must be a leftist as he only acknoledges a fraction of the total set of facts about Iraq.

P. Bunyan, I was actually a onetime supporter of the Vietnam War and Nixon's "peace with honor" plans in those days. However having spent years in careful study about what went wrong in Vietnam, I've turned into a critic of any war in which the U.S. gets involved into a low tech combat situation and cannot use it's high tech advantage. In Vietnam, we had a force of over 600,000 to police a country of less than 18 million and failed. In Iraq we really needed a force of over 1,000,000 U.S. troops to adequately secure the borders, etc. in a larger nation of nearly 27.5 million, but instead only had a peak strength of 160,000 with the "surge" troops added.

Critics of the Iraq War like me are certainly not why the U.S. will ultimately fail in Iraq. We have too few soldiers there. We're caught in the middle of an ugly sectarian conflict that started back about 635AD, and we have no grasp of MidEast culture. The government in Iraq fails to reconcile with the Sunni minority as well and is terribly corrupt. Al Qaeda certainly will not win in Iraq, Iran will, and with only a small investment compared to the U.S. role there.