Read this important essay ("The Battle for Iraq") by Reuel Marc Gerecht in the latest Weekly Standard. It strikes me as a realistic, sometimes pessimistic, but ultimately affirmative view of what we have done in Iraq thus far.
Gerecht plainly states that Fallujah was a thorough defeat for us, but he is hopeful that we can retake the ground we've lost in the Sunni heartland. Indeed, this essay stresses, more than maybe any other I've read, the fundamentalist Sunni factor at work in the violence our men are faced with today.
But I liked this advice (emphasis added):
The president should transport all the Marines he can to Iraq, and then take and hold the centers of the Sunni insurrection, starting with Falluja. The administration shouldn't fear the Arabic satellite TV networks' broadcasting the horrors of the American offensive. Bin Ladenism grew by preaching the gospel of American weakness, not strength. The Ottoman empire, the greatest of Islam's holy-warrior states, attracted vastly more jihadists from its realms and beyond when it had Europe's Christian kingdoms on the run. If the Americans win--and win we will--these TV networks will not be able to camouflage defeat.I certainly hope (and if I could pray, I'd do that, too) that Samarra will prove a success that we can build on. Iraq needs to have a sense of its own power ---and they need to come to see us more as the guarantor of that power, rather than some usurper.