Think Progress, a liberal web site, has a short commentary on the “surge,” the success in Anbar, and how the facts on the ground allegedly bebunk the relationship between the two.  Says the commentary:

Today, President Bush held the Anbar province up as an example of his escalation’s success and justification for why the troop buildup should not be cut short:

In Anbar you’re seeing firsthand the dramatic differences that can come when the Iraqis are more secure. … You see Sunnis who once fought side by side with al-Qaida against coalition troops now fighting side by side with coalition troops against al-Qaida.

But as the AP points out, “In truth, the progress in Anbar was initiated by the Iraqis themselves, a point Gates himself made, saying the Sunni tribes decided to fight and retake control from al-Qaida many months before Bush decided to send an extra 4,000 Marines to Anbar as part of his troop buildup.�

At last count there are over 920 comments to this post, many of which curse the administration and call them liars.  The sad part of this is that the commentary actually latches onto a significant point, but fails to follow through on the implications of it.  Instead, the commentary (and especially the comments) reflexively veers into hysterical ravings because of preconceptions about what might or might not be happening in Iraq.  Strict thought boundaries are needed to understand what has happened, as well as a knowledge of recent military history in Iraq.

Surprisingly, the author correctly grabs onto an interesting fact concerning the pacification of Anbar, i.e., that the groundwork had been put into place prior to the surge.  At this point, clear thinking disappears and the hystrionics begin.  But the point is that the ground work had indeed been put into place, and not only by the tribes, but by the Marines over four years of operations.

As we have pointed out before, “The Marines had tested the strategy of combat outposts in Anbar before Petraeus ever changed the strategy for the Army.  Contrary to the British who falsely believed that a ’softer’ approach would win hearts and minds, they knew that before a terrorized population could trust them, the fight must be taken to the insurgency with heavy kinetic operations.

Americans learned a basic lesson of warfare here: that Iraqis, bludgeoned for 24 years by Saddam’s terror, are wary of rising against any force, however brutal, until it is in retreat. In Anbar, Sunni extremists were the dominant force, with near-total popular support or acquiescence, until the offensive broke their power.

This work set the foundation in place for the so-called Anbar Awakening, or the turning of the tribes against al Qaeda.  The Awakening cannot and must not be seen in the abstract without the proper framework.  The framework was built by three prior years of operations by Marines.”

The additional five battalions of Marines were sent to Anbar to finish out the effort that had begun in 2004, and do not represent even nearly the majority of troops involved in the “surge.”  The change in strategy mainly involved the balance of Iraq, and this necessitated increased troops levels.

The connection between the surge and the pacification of Anbar has to do with strategy, and how implementation of the correct one yields fruit.  The point was not that the surge pacified Anbar.  To take this lesson away from the difficult Iraq experience is to betray a short attention span and a stolid intellectual demeanor.

Think Progress latches onto a point that they believe proves the strategy wrong, when the opposite is actually true.  It wasn’t merely the tribal alignments that triggered the change in Anbar, although that was significant.  The insurgency was substantially militarily defeated in Anbar due to strategy, thus enabling the tribes to participate in their own security.

The Anbar model may not be able to be precisely duplicated in the balance of Iraq, but it is instructive and can contribute to the template used in the future.  And Think Progress still will not understand, because they are hysterical.