Facing reality in Iraq

What happened

President Bush said on Sunday that the U.S. is on track to bring 20,000 soldiers home from Iraq by summer. After meeting with his top Iraq commander, Gen. David Petraeus, in Kuwait, Bush said that last year’s surge of troops had disrupted, but not destroyed, extremist militias. (Los Angeles Times, free registration)

What the commentators said

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It’s “beyond dispute” that the surge is working, said Roger D. Carstens in Human Events. The problem is that the media has responded with “deafening silence.” That’s bad for the war effort, because encouraging news could strengthen the nation’s resolve to press on.

Democrats can’t bring themselves to “admit real success” either, said William Kristol in The New York Times (free registration). That’s because it was achieved under President Bush—“the horror!” The leaders of the Democratic party predicted failure before the surge, and they’re still “out of touch with reality.”

Bush’s cheerleaders seem to be awfully fond of square one, said Steven Weber and Bruce W. Jentleson in the Los Angeles Times (free registration). “The surge led by Gen. David H. Petraeus has returned the country to levels of violence no worse than in 2004.” And “whether the progress in security can be sustained is fundamentally a political issue, and one for which the prospects remain poor.”