So there’s this argument going on now as to whether we can attribute the ongoing success in Iraq to the “surge” strategy or whether it was simply a product of the domestic Anbar Awakening. The basic premise of the question is way off because the Sunnis who stood up to become the Sons of Iraq (SoI) that began the Anbar Awakening never would have done so unless they had know the US was coming over the hill with reinforcements.

But the media seems to think that they have caught Sen. McCain in some sort of foreign policy flub because he contends that the SoI would’t have been sustainable were it not for the surge in US troops. They point out that the additional surge troops did not arrive in country until after the SoI had begun to stand up. However, this ignores some fairly important facts. We had announced well before then that we were recommitting to securing Iraq, and we had begun to implement the new strategy surrounding the additional surge troops before they arrived. Both of these things provided a pretty strong signal to the SoI that we weren’t about to abandon them (like Barack Obama would have done and still plans to do), and that they were safe to begin operations against AQI.

Not everyone in the media seems to have bought into the liberal line of attack however. Joe Scarborough over at MSNBC concludes that history is on McCain’s side: