A Rassmussen poll indicates that increasing numbers of Americans (now up to 40 percent) realize that conditions in Iraq are improving and victory is possible, but a plurality (44 percent) still believes that the United States is doomed to lose the war in that country.
However, public opinion often changes more slowly than objective conditions. People think there is a recession for months after one is declared over by economists. So eventually, the bulk of the public will realize, as even many in the MSM are beginning to note, that America is likely to prevail in Iraq. That doesn't mean all will be rosy or victory will be permanent. Success is always tenuous in the Middle East. But it does mean that U.S. casualties are most likely to continue to drop and that the U.S. will be able to diminish its troop presence. Somewhere along the continuum of news developments one might be able to say, we have won. And as the realization sinks again--countering years of almost overwhelming efforts to discredit the Bush Administration on every aspect of the Iraq War --it will make a huge difference to our foreign policy and our standing in the world, almost like the toppling of the Berlin Wall.
Read this piece by Michael Totten in Commentary, citing, in turn, the remarkable Michael Yon. The latter, by the way, should be winning journalism awards for prescience and courage. Instead, he is largely ignored by the elites. Victory will be declared when they decide to declare it, I guess.
Meanwhile, what happens when U.S public opinion fully swings on this war?