There is a long way to go but things are looking up in Iraq and the achievements of the US and her allies in the country should be acknowledged, writes Rory Miller.
'We will not tire, we will not falter, we will not fail.' This was the promise made to the American people by president George W Bush when he initiated the war on terror in the immediate aftermath of al-Qaeda's September 11th, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
But over the last few years the US has both tired and faltered and much of domestic and world opinion has been convinced for some time that the ill-conceived and poorly planned post-invasion strategy in Iraq has made failure in the war on terror inevitable.
But now it appears that the conventional wisdom that there is no military solution to the al-Qaeda problem and that there is no hope for Iraq, is being challenged by a number of overlapping developments in that most troubled of lands.
Against the odds and all expectations al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia (as the group calls itself) is on the verge of total defeat in Iraq.
In the last few days this has led the Washington Postto talk in terms of the "beginning of a return to normalcy"; while a front-page story in the New York Timeson November 20th based on more than 50 interviews with locals, that has gained worldwide attention, concluded that Iraqis are "definitely optimistic" about the future.
The immediate explanation for the improved situation on the ground is that the US military surge which began in February 2007 has been effective in quelling violence.
This new approach saw the gradual deployment of 30,000 extra combat troops in hotspots in Baghdad, where 80 per cent of all sectarian violence had been taking place, and in the province of Anbar, where nearly half of all insurgent attacks on US forces had occurred prior to 2007.
Under the direction of Gen David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, these combat units have established frontline bases in the most dangerous areas, from where insurgents have been aggressively engaged with the support of local allies.
In Baghdad there are 34 of these makeshift bases and they have helped transform previously lawless "no go" areas like Ghazaliya, a western suburb of the city.
The figures speak for themselves. The Pentagon claims that Iraqi civilian casualties are down over 50 per cent since the surge began last February and that US fatalities have fallen from 126 last May to 38 in October. According to the Washington Postthere has been a 55 per cent drop in insurgent attacks and a 60 per cent drop in Iraqi civilian casualties since the surge hit full stride in June. The New York Timeshas reported that suicide bombings have fallen from 59 last March to 16 in October.
There is no doubt that the surge has been a success. In particular, the recent lull in the violence has given US forces the chance to develop local contacts and to gather intelligence in far more favourable conditions. The strategy's success has also earned the US goodwill from local populations that have had very little to be cheerful about in recent years and has significantly increased the US military's standing with its allies. One British officer who recently visited Iraq after an absence of a year not only noted the transformation in Baghdad but came away with the view that "intellectually, economically and militarily" the US was now streets ahead of its allies in addressing the problems Iraq faced.
But the surge is by no means a panacea.
It has mainly focused on those Sunni areas that had been taken over by al-Qaeda or targeted by Shia militias. So far nowhere near as much effort has been invested in gaining a foothold in Shia strongholds like Sadr city, the area of Baghdad named after Moqtada al-Sadr, the head of the most powerful Shia militia, the Mahdi Army.
Moreover, some analysts have recently argued that it was the tactical decision last August by al-Sadr to order his forces to "freeze" sectarian attacks in Sunni areas for six months, rather than the surge, that is primarily responsible for the current drop in sectarian violence.
This claim is debatable but what is definitely not in doubt is that the "Sunni Awakening", the decision by the Sunni tribes in Anbar and elsewhere to ally with the Americans against al-Qaeda has been a hugely significant development.
This began prior to the surge but in recent months the tribes, drawing on the momentum provided by the US offensive, have almost completely succeeded in driving al-Qaeda out of most of the major towns in Anbar.
As Michael Yon, the highly respected combat photo-journalist, recently reported, on October 31st Sheik Omar Jabouri, a spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party, who is also a member of the important Jabouri tribe, convened a press conference in Baghdad to announce "al-Qaeda in Iraq is defeated". Jabouri added that al-Qaeda operatives no longer had any sympathy among ordinary Iraqis and as such "they are being hunted down and killed. Or, if they are lucky, captured by Americans."
The reason that the Sunni tribes, as well as other Sunni militant groups, have now joined forces with the US military to eradicate al-Qaeda is because the Bin Laden loyalists are despised for their effort to undermine the traditional tribal leadership in Anbar and for the havoc they have caused in attempting to plunge Iraq into a sectarian Sunni versus Shia civil war.
This was seen clearly across the region in towns like Habbaniya, where al-Qaeda's mainly foreign-born nihilist jihadists blew up the local mosque in an attempt to subvert the efforts of the local Sunni leadership to stabilise the area in co-operation with the US and Iraqi police and army units by. The result - 36 dead worshippers and the alienation of a whole town from al-Qaeda in one afternoon.
As far back as 2005, Abu Muhammed al-Maqdisi, the mentor of the late head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, warned that al-Qaeda in Iraq had chosen to fight the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time and was heading for disaster.
His warning went unheeded but now the surge and the Sunni tribes' opposition have left this group decimated.
Not even Osama Bin Laden's desperate plea for Sunni unity and his apology for al-Qaeda's past errors that was issued on October 22nd can help it recover its former position.
Al-Qaeda's humiliating defeat is Iraq's opportunity and there is now, in the words of Stuart Bower, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a "breathing space" for the country to get back on its feet.
But there is a long way to go.
The Sunni population still fear the Shia militias and the rump of al-Qaeda will continue to look to pull off horrific sectarian attacks, like the February 2006 bombing of the "Golden" Askariyya Shrine in Samarra, one of Shia Islam's holiest sites, in the hope of bringing about a sectarian civil war.
Nobody knows how fragile the new situation is more than those on the ground, and as the US officer commanding northwest Baghdad recently told a reporter, in golf terms the recent successes meant they had "got the ball on the tee" but "it's not going to take much to blow it off".
That said, the lesson of the last few months is that the US, with the right strategy and the support of local allies, can take on and defeat militarily even the most determined and devoted jihadists in even the most challenging of locations.
That is something few either inside or outside Iraq thought possible only months ago. It is due to the courage and commitment of US troops and the unwillingness of Iraqi Sunnis to stand by any longer and watch Bin Laden's jihadists destroy their country. All of which gives reason for hope where very little existed.
Dr Rory Miller is a senior lecturer in Mediterranean studies at King's College London.