"The wider Sunni insurgency — the groups beyond Al Qaeda — is being slowly, and surely, defeated. The average insurgent today feels demoralized, disillusioned, and hunted. Those who have not been captured yet are opting for a quieter life outside of Iraq. Al Qaeda continues to grow for the time being as it cannibalizes the other insurgent groups and absorbs their most radical and hardcore fringes into its fold. The Baathists, who had been critical in spurring the initial insurgency, are becoming less and less relevant, and are drifting without a clear purpose following the hanging of their idol, Saddam Hussein.....Last October, my sources began telling me about rumblings among the insurgent strategists suggesting that their murderous endeavor was about to run out of steam. This sense of fatigue began registering among mid-level insurgent commanders in late December, and it has devolved to the rank and file since then. The insurgents have begun to feel that the tide has turned against them."

"Never mind who takes credit, kill or capture more of the killers to ensure victory."

So let’s think of Iraq as Guadalcanal. The enemy shouldn’t have chosen to fight there, but they did. They chose to turn Iraq into a major battlefield – not us. We still can – and should – win. When we win, we will probably all – like the Americans after Guadalcanal – breath a sigh of relief that somehow it all ended up turning out okay. But for our enemies, defeat in Iraq will be for them what defeat at Guadalcanal was for Imperial Japan – crushing, catastrophic, and cataclysmic. That is the “upside potential.” Those are the consequences of victory. And these alone are reason enough to push on boldly.