I have been highly buoyed by the success of the SURGE which in all honesty I thought would take longer to reach the current levels of effectiveness.  This in part may be due to the fact that for many of the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) used during the SURGE were never implemented in such a wide spread a manner as they had been during this counter insurgency action.  Some credit must also be given to some Theatre of operations happy coincidences but not as much credit as one gets the impression from the MSM. The Army and Marine Corps deserve a vigorous well done! Much of this good work had to be accomplished with their hands tied by people who thought they knew better on how to fight a war, IMHO.

I also believe that this is still essentially an intelligence war and that we must spare no effort to root out the core cadre of the insurgency lest they try to resurface like a weed.  I have always believed that these are the old members of Sadam?s Intelligence Infrastructure (SII) who went to ground after the fall of the old regime. I believe they are using what might be called a double blind control by which they do not directly interface with the insurgents who are doing the actual fighting but only facilitate these actions thru intermediaries (maybe even two levels of intermediaries). They facilitate mainly by orchestrating the insurgent attacks for maximum propaganda value and the raising and distribution of funds. Due to the plentiful local supply of munitions, logistics was not a problem for them until the SURGE occurred; we?ll see how they handle this problem shortly, if their able (these were not soldiers but spies).

This is not to say that the Iranians were not making their contribution to both sides of the chaos (just as the SII was) but they were not as familiar with the local human terrain nor did they have the resources in place (spies/ stooges/ goon squads/ lists of helpful thugs/ likely safe houses) as the old regime?s SII.