Michael Yon argues that it’s more important than statistics or over-arching calcification of the "political" system. And he says it’s changed dramatically since the change in US strategy:
As the outrages of Abu Ghraib faded in memory – and paled in comparison to al Qaeda’s brutalities – and our soldiers under the Petraeus strategy got off their big bases and out of their tanks and deeper into the neighborhoods, American values began to win the war.
Iraqis came to respect American soldiers as warriors who would protect them from terror gangs. But Iraqis also discovered that these great warriors are even happier helping rebuild a clinic, school or a neighborhood. They learned that the American soldier is not only the most dangerous enemy in the world, but one of the best friends a neighborhood can have.
This is obviously a subjective and anecdotal inference, as Yon concedes. But it may be true – I cannot know this far away – and worth adding to the equation.
The Dish 