After Action Report from Iraq

Defense Tech breaks down the Good and the Bad of this analysis by former Army general and SouthCom commander Barry McCaffrey. The MSM of course, is focusing mainly the bad news, so here's the good:

Since the arrival of General David Petraeus in command of Multi-National Force Iraq--- the situation on the ground has clearly and measurably improved.
There is a real and growing ground swell of Sunni tribal opposition to the Al Qaeda-in-Iraq terror formations. (90% Iraqi.) This counter-Al Qaeda movement in Anbar Province was fostered by brilliant US Marine leadership. There is now unmistakable evidence that the western Sunni tribes are increasingly convinced that they blundered badly by sitting out the political process...The command and control technology, training, contractor support, and flexibility of Marine and Army combat formations are magnificent.
The US Tier One special operations capability is simply magic.

And finally:

In my judgment, we can still achieve our objective of: a stable Iraq, at peace with its neighbors, not producing weapons of mass destruction, and fully committed to a law-based government.

I agree. I still believe its possible for America to do anything she sets her mind to, out of all the nations on Earth. Sadly, we are living in a very pessimistic society which prefers to hope for the worse.

Here's the whole report in PDF if you're interested.

Also read Things are looking up by Joe Lieberman.