Obama Explains It All

The McCain people must be going insane:

"Here is what I will say," Obama said, "I think that, I did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii'a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct."

[snip]

"Well, you were saying that it would not make a significant dent in the violence," Moran said.

"In the violence in Iraq overall, right," Obama acknowledged. "So the point that I was making at the time was that the political dynamic was the driving force between that sectarian violence. And we could try to keep a lid on it, but if these underlining dynamic continued to bubble up and explode the way they were, then we would be in a difficult situation. I am glad that in fact those political dynamic shifted at the same time that our troops did outstanding work."

So... it's not that the surge was successful, it's just that violence decreased and the political dynamic became more manageable. Sure.

Of course, what the relative success of the surge (or whatever) really means is that Obama won't have to talk about Iraq pretty much ever again. McCain has often said he'd rather "lose an election than lose a war," but I don't think he thought he'd be on the winning side of a war and lose the election anyway.