The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

clipped from www.nydailynews.com Even the Marine Corps, arguably the least defeatist institution in America, wrote off Ramadi as irretrievably lost last August. Then, local tribal leaders and civilians joined the Americans - and helped purge the city of every last terrorist cell. Violence has dropped to near zero. I have photographs of Iraqis hugging American soldiers and of children greeting us with ecstatic joy, as though they had been rescued from Nazis. The Marines are even considering going on patrols without body armor. What worked in Ramadi might not work in Baghdad. The Mahdi Army's relative moderation, compared with Al Qaeda's brutality, prevents it from being rejected by the entire society. But this much cannot be denied: There are powerful winds of change in Iraq, and not enough time has passed to determine how they will transform the country. Want to know if the surge will succeed or fail? There is only one thing to do: Wait.