The Associated Press Throws in the Towel on Iraq

(Via the Instapundit)

Analysis: US now winning Iraq war that seemed lost

By ROBERT BURNS and ROBERT H. REID – 15 hours ago

BAGHDAD (AP) — The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost.

Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace — a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.

The AP conceding victory on Iraq can only mean one thing: the media campaign for Barack Obama has entered a new phase. Since Obama's long-time championing of surrender and defeat in Iraq is a painful and obvious fact and one that will figure largely in the Republicans' campaign against him, look for the media to inundate us over the next six weeks with Iraq victory stories, heaping praise on our brave troops (as Obama is already doing), in the hopes that by September, with the conventions over and the presidential campaign beginning in earnest, the Iraq war will be a dead issue. Should John McCain have the temerity to raise the issue of Obama's turncoat position on Iraq, expect Obama and his media cohorts to respond with a collective rolling of the eyes accompanied by exhortations it's time to "move on" from Iraq. They may even get away with it.