Good news from Iraq can't penetrate Dem stubborness

David Limbaugh:

Very good news is coming out of Iraq. Not surprisingly, this hasnt caused a change of heart among the Democratic leadership. It hasnt even given them pause. One wonders if they are capable of hearing such news anymore.

The Times Online reports that Al Qaeda is facing rebellion from within its ranks. Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a persons face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of Al Qaeda are daring to become informants for the U.S. military in a hostile Baghdad neighborhood.

Some of these junior Al Qaeda members are said to be repulsed by the gratuitous, barbaric violence. One said, I am sick of it and I hate them, and I am done.

The good news doesnt stop here. Al Qaeda is not only facing internal dissension, but evidence is also emerging that other ethnic forces formerly friendly to Al Qaeda are changing their tune. Iraqi locals are denying Al Qaeda the sanctuary they need to operate. Lt. Col Stephen Michael, commander of a 700-troop battalion in Doura, says, Al Qaedas days are numbered, and right now he is scrambling.

This news, says the Times, comes out of Doura. But it is part of a wider trend that has started in other Al Qaeda hotspots across the country and in which Sunni insurgent groups and tribal sheikhs have stood together with the coalition against the extremist movement.

Along the same lines, The Washington Times reports that U.S. forces have brokered an agreement between Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders in Taji, Iraq, to join forces against Al Qaeda and other extremists, which represents an extension of a policy already implemented in Anbar province that has transformed the security situation there.

This isnt some flimsy handshake deal. Tribal leaders agreed to use members of more than 25 local tribes to protect the area around Taji from Sunni and Shiite extremists. Its also significant that tribal forces approached U.S. forces to initiate this agreement.

Al Qaedas inhumanity is not the only reason things are beginning to change in Iraq. The reports clearly indicate that the increased number of U.S. forces in Doura has made the locals feel its less dangerous for them to turn toward us. These reports are direct confirmation that the surge strategy is working.

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Has any of this good news coming out of Iraq prompted Democrats to rethink their opposition to victory?

A brief survey of recent headlines reveals quite the opposite. Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would press forward on legislation to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, despite the Democrats failed efforts last week to pass such a bill. He also said Republicans who voted against withdrawal of our troops were engaged in partisan gamesmanship. If that isn't a textbook case of psychological projection, Ive never seen one.

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The Democrats are desperately seeking to insure defeat before the extent of the success of our new strategy in Iraq becomes clear. That success is so political inconvenient to the Democrats that they cannot acknowledge it much less accept the reality. Their commitment to defeat is so complete that a win in Iraq by our forces is a defeat for their agenda. It is going to be harder to ignore in the coming weeks, but they will do their worse to do so.

Wretchard at the Belmont Club asks:

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Now suppose one were inclined to be skeptical that things were getting better and dismiss these reports as wishful thinking. What kinds of things would you need to see before you were willing to grant that "progress" might actually be happening? And would such indicators, if present, be sufficient to alter an inclination to withdraw from Iraq?

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He goes on to posit that the key question would be why things are getting better. That would be the rational approach, but it appears that the Democrats are not willing to grant the premise much less ask the question. Their commitment to defeat appears to be total regardless of the facts.

J.R. Dunn writing at the American Thinker says the left is just going to ignore the success of the surge. They do so at their political peril.