The largest political story of the past year has not been the struggle for conservative self-definition, or the racially charged fight between Clintonistas and other Democrats, or the infinitely varied failures of the Democratic Congress. It has been the turnaround in Iraq.

President Bush’s announcement of the surge in January 2007 pleased almost no one — neither Democrats who embraced retreat at any cost, nor Republicans who suspected the shift in approach was too little, too late. To quote three Republican senators, Lamar Alexander argued that it was “not by itself... a strategy for success”; Sam Brownback said adding troops to Iraq was “not... the answer”; Susan Collins called it a “mistake.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice canceled a trip to the Middle East to hold the hands of skittish congressional Republicans, whose defections on war funding could have meant the effective end of the Bush presidency.

By the summer of 2007, the Republican presidential candidate most closely identified with the war, John McCain, was in serious trouble. Moderates and independents no longer seemed impressed by the fierce, lonely advocate of what many called “escalation.” Political observers argued that McCain’s money troubles and staff resignations and firings — he went from 120 campaign workers to 50 — were “another nail in Mr McCain’s campaign coffin,” showing that “the wheels came off,” and leading to “a death spiral that is almost never survived.”

If cliches could kill, McCain would have been embalmed and buried.

Yet the Republican candidate most closely identified with the war and the surge performs well in head-to-head polls against the Democrats. The revival of McCain’s campaign was possible for one reason: the revival of American fortunes in Iraq. Most categories of violence in Iraq are now down by more than 60 per cent, and sectarian attacks in Baghdad have fallen by 90 per cent. Sunni tribal leaders are conducting the first large-scale revolt of Arabs against al-Qaeda thuggery — which includes, we learned last week, strapping explosives to a mentally disabled woman and setting off a blast in a market.

... contd.