Change you can believe in or not

Some of you may have noticed my ongoing Genesis series over at Mudville - a look back at four years of efforts to enlist the support of the residents of Anbar (to include organized insurgent groups once hostile to our cause) in the battle with al Qaeda - and the development of the strategy behind the surge. That history is obviously pertinent to the current political argument (albeit completely uninteresting to most folks involved in that argument) of whether just one or both of those developments is significant to the current level of violence/recent successes in Iraq. More on that in the continue reading section. Here I just want to highlight this side issue/talking point from a June, 2005 interview (the main focus of which was the revelation of ongoing negotiations with Anbar Sunnis) with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY' HOST CHRIS WALLACE: We had Secretary Rice on last week, and she tried to make the same argument I think that you are, sir, that while the political progress -- and there's no question there's been political progress. There's been an election, there's been the forming of a government, the forming of a constitutional committee.

But while all that's going on, the insurgency...

RUMSFELD: There's still violence.

WALLACE: ... seems to actually be on the increase.

Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal.

Lately there's been both reduced violence and political progress - and the "credit the Iranians" argument has been tried - thus far to zero traction. But if all else fails and Iraq becomes peaceful and prosperous (or even just continues down that road this summer) a new consensus is waiting in the wings: "In all this, we should be clear on one thing: Even if the optimistic scenarios prevail, this war was a mistake from beginning to end."

So neener neener neener once again.