There is a pattern that has developed in recent American wars. With the onset of battle the media and opposition swiftly jump onside with the President then, when American forces fail to repeat their performance in the Second World War within seven days, they will begin to explain that they support the war, but merely believe that there wasn’t enough ‘planning.’ A week after that, when US forces win, they will jump back onside only to, at the first sign of a reversal, begin referring to a ‘quagmire’ and invoking the grim spectre of Vietnam. I have seen this in all four major US conflicts within the past decade: Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Iraqi Insurrection in which we are now engaged. It is a pathetic pattern, one designed to exploit public feeling rather than to ensure the security of the nation.

We’ve heard all of this before. There’s always a ‘fierce Afghan winter’ just around the corner. Every ambush signals ‘the beginning of the end for the American empire.’ The gloom is recent weeks has been oppressive, with predictions of American defeat seeming to come from all corners. Just a few days ago, in Baghdad, Senator Hillary Clinton stated that defeat was a possibility. A search through the various forums of conservative communication (Fox News, various op-ed pages, the conservative press, and the Blogosphere) finds a group of people increasingly anxious about the prospects for victory in Iraq. But here’s the truth: we are winning in Iraq, we will continue to win in Iraq, and, in the end, the so-called ‘Iraqi resistance’ will be consigned to the same grave of history as Slobodan Milosevic, the Taliban, and the defeated regime of Saddam Hussein.

Here is what you have yet to hear reported in the mainstream media. In the few weeks since Coalition forces began to launch major counter-insurgency attacks, beginning with Operation Iron Hammer, over 1100 Iraqi Guerrillas have been captured or killed. This represents one-fifth of the entire strength of the Ba’athist and Islamist forces in the country. These figures, presented to President Bush in a secret briefing during his Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad, do not include the forty-six terrorists killed in a battle on November 30th. In other words, the US armed forces are killing and capturing fifteen of the enemy for each loss of their own: and this figure is distorted by the high number of US personnel killed in aircraft shoot-downs in November, a figure which is not likely to be repeated. In individual combat, the results look more and more like those of the last Sunday in November: forty-six of the enemy killed and eight captured with no losses among our forces. At the present rate, the entire force possessed by the enemy will be destroyed, and the country pacified, in a matter of months.

The media has tried to spin the increase in the number of attacks outside of the so-called ‘Sunni Triangle’ as a sign that the enemy is gathering strength. This is exactly the opposite of the truth. The increasing combat efficiency of the Fourth Infantry Division and a lack of support for the resistance among the general population have forced them to seek other ground for operations. The strong progress made towards the development of new governments and economic revitalization in the North and South seriously undermine the ability of the enemy to operate anywhere in the country. The attacks in regions outside of the triangle are occurring for two reasons. First, US forces are increasingly well protection while native Iraqi forces remain soft targets. Second, the progress made in reconstruction seriously threatens the ability of the insurgents to continue to fight; especially as the progress being made raises the possibility that the Iraqi rebels might soon find that their main enemy is a US-backed Iraqi Army.

There is a constant cry in the media, from armchair Generals, from various experts, and from politicians of all stripes that there need to be more ‘boots on the ground’ in Iraq. Yet, I fail to see just what purpose that would serve. The Iraqi resistance is not an army in any traditional sense of the word, there are no fixed battlements to man. An increase in American forces in-country would simply leave more targets for suicide bombers and ambushes. It is far better, I think, to risk having too few forces in the country than to risk another Beirut.

The Administration has exactly the right strategy for US forces in Iraq. Coalition forces are steadily reducing the strength of the enemy while rapidly building up the native resources with which to confront them. This should be thought of as a Colonial war, like many fought by the British. In these wars, the number of British regulars on the ground was always kept to the absolute minimum, with much of the actual fighting being done by locally recruited forces. Building up a strong Iraqi army would have other advantages as well: recruitment, especially if the recruits were very well-paid, would drain away manpower from the resistance also, a few years down the road, a professional, well-trained, and well-equipped Iraqi Army could prove to be a useful ally in unscheduled future wars.

Moronic attacks on the President for his lack of a ‘plan’ for post-war Iraq are gradually being exposed for the baseless trash they always were. The nation is stable: these resistance fighters can delay progress, but they cannot stop it. There is zero chance that Saddam Hussein will ever return, or that some other figure will emerge from the guerrillas to lead the nation. Rather, Coalition pacification efforts are moving smoothly. In the last month the numbers of insurrectionary attacks have dropped by thirty percent. The accompanying increase in the violence and intensity of the attacks is, more than anything else, a sign of their increasing desperation. Frankly, I fail to see how anyone, let alone the Democratic candidates for President, could have done any better. It now appears entirely possible that, by May 1st, 2004: one year after the end of the invasion and the beginning of the occupation, the Ba’athist resistance will have been totally destroyed, leaving only foreign Islamists to contend with in Iraq.

Inexorably, this war is being won. It is being won by the gallant courage of the US forces on the ground and by unflinching American leaders who are willing to approach foreign policy like adults. Within a few months (or, at the most, a year) all of this talk of ‘quagmires’ will have disappeared to replaced by the familiar refrain of the whiners who, having done everything to obstruct the war effort, will now claim that credit for victory is due all around. The Vietnam comparisons will be quietly filed away, only to be trotted back out the next time victory takes longer to arrive than the running time of the ‘Roots’ mini-series.

It’s a pity really: this should be everyone’s victory. But it isn’t. The leaders of the Democratic Party have done nothing to contribute to victory in this war. But it matters not. History will harshly judge the guilty and assign the credit to the victors. What matters for now is this: we will prevail in Iraq.