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How Prime Minister Maliki Pacified Iraq (The Wall Street Journal)
How Prime Minister Maliki Pacified Iraq
The Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2008, Opinion Section
By Kimberly Kagan and Frederick W. Kagan
Excerpt
America is very close to succeeding in Iraq. The "near-strategic defeat" of al Qaeda in Iraq described by CIA Director Michael Hayden last month in the Washington Post has been followed by the victory of the Iraqi government's security forces over illegal Shiite militias, including Iranian-backed Special Groups. The enemies of Iraq and America now cling desperately to their last bastions, while the political process builds momentum.
These tremendous gains remain fragile and could be lost to skillful enemy action, or errors in Baghdad or Washington. But where the U.S. was unequivocally losing in Iraq at the end of 2006, we are just as unequivocally winning today.