On one hand, the Surrender Monkey is not amused. It really does not help the cause of the Defeatocrats to talk about The Surge having worked in The Paper Of Record. On the flip side, there is nothing Surrendie loves more then a surrender to the inevitable

Market by market, square by square, the walls are beginning to come down. The miles of hulking blast walls, ugly but effective, were installed as a central feature of the surge of American troops to stop neighbors from killing one another.

“They protected against car bombs and drive-by attacks,” said Adnan, 39, a vegetable seller in the once violent neighborhood of Dora, who argues that the walls now block the markets and the commerce that Baghdad needs to thrive. “Now it is safe.”

The slow dismantling of the concrete walls is the most visible sign of a fundamental change here in the Iraqi capital. The American surge strategy, which increased the number of United States troops and contributed to stability here, is drawing to a close. And a transition is under way to the almost inevitable American drawdown in 2009.

Huh? The Surge has worked? Maybe someone should tell That One, who still thinks that The Surge was a failure, and has created any and all talking points to force an artificial redeployment out of Iraq, even saying he would send the troops to Afghanistan. Anyone who believes that he would really do that is basically Andrew Sullivan insane.

“The Iraqi security forces are now able to protect Iraq,” said Joaidi Nahim Mahmoud Arif, a National Police sergeant in Dora, in southern Baghdad. “They will depend on themselves above all.”

I’ll grant that the Coalition top leadership really blew it once the initial war was over, but, now, as we move the troops our of Iraq responsibly, the possibility of a free and democratic Iraq is bearing fruit. Do the Dems still want to lose it?