Opinion:"The key to turning [ Anbar] around was the shift in allegiance by tribal sheikhs. But the sheikhs turned only after a prolonged offensive by American and Iraqi forces, starting in November, that put al-Qaeda groups on the run." - New York Times, July 8th.
Finally, after four terribly long years, we know what works. Or what can work. A year ago, a confidential marine intelligence report declared Anbar province (which comprises about a third of Iraq's territory) lost to al-Qaeda. Now, in what the Times's John Burns calls an "astonishing success", the tribal sheikhs have joined the US side and committed large numbers of fighters that, in concert with American and Iraqi forces, have largely driven out al-Qaeda and turned its former stronghold of Ramadi into one of the most secure cities in Iraq.
It began with a US-led offensive that killed or wounded more than 200 insurgent fighters and captured 600. Most important was the follow-up. Not a retreat back to American bases, but the setting up of small posts within the population that, together with the Iraqi national and tribal forces, have brought relative stability to Anbar.
The same has started happening in many of the Sunni areas around Baghdad, including Diyala province - just a year ago considered as lost as Anbar - where, for example, the Sunni insurgent 1920 Revolution Brigades have turned against al-Qaeda and joined the fight on the side of the US.
We do not yet know if this strategy will work in mixed Sunni-Shia neighbourhoods. Nor can we be certain that this co-operation between essentially Sunni tribal forces and an essentially Shia central government can endure.
But what cannot be said - although it is now heard daily in Washington - is that the surge, which is shorthand for Gen David Petraeus's new counter-insurgency strategy, has failed.
The tragedy is that, just as a working strategy has been found, some Republicans in the Senate have lost heart and want to pull the plug. It is understandable that senators Lugar, Voinovich, Domenici, Snowe and Warner may no longer trust Mr Bush's judgment when he tells them to wait until Gen Petraeus reports in September. What is not understandable is the vote of no confidence they are passing on Petraeus. These are the same senators who sent him back to Iraq by an 81-0 vote to institute his new counter-insurgency strategy.
A month ago, Petraeus was asked whether the US could still win in Iraq. The general, who had recently attended two memorial services for soldiers lost under his command, replied that if he thought he could not succeed, he would not be risking the life of a single soldier.
Just last week he said that the one thing he needs more than anything else is time. To cut off his plan just as it is beginning - the last surge troops arrived only last month - on the assumption that the US cannot succeed is to declare him either deluded or dishonourable.
Deluded in that, as the best-positioned American in Baghdad, he still believes that the US can succeed. Or dishonourable in pretending to believe in victory and sending soldiers to die in what he really knows is an already failed strategy.
That's the logic of the wobbly Republicans' position. But rather than lay it on Petraeus, they prefer to lay it on prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and point out his government's inability to meet the required political "benchmarks".
As a longtime critic of the Maliki government, I agree that it has proved itself incapable of passing laws important for long-term national reconciliation. But first comes the short term. And right now the US has the chance to continue to isolate al-Qaeda and, province by province, deny it the Sunni sea in which it swims.
A year ago, it appeared that the only way to win back the Sunnis and neutralise the extremists was with great national compacts about oil and power-sharing. But Anbar has shown that, even without these constitutional settlements, the insurgency can be neutralised and al-Qaeda defeated at the local and provincial level with a new and robust counter-insurgency strategy. The costs are heartbreakingly high - increased American casualties as the insurgents are engaged and spectacular suicide-bombings designed to terrify Iraqis and demoralise Americans. But the stakes are extremely high as well.
In the long run, agreements on oil, federalism and de-Baathification are crucial to stabilising Iraq. But their absence at this moment is not a reason to give up in despair now that a counter-insurgency strategy is finally in place that is showing success against the one enemy that both critics and supporters of the war maintain must be fought everywhere and at all costs - al-Qaeda.
© 2007, Washington Post Writers' Group