Here's the real sort of success metric we should be watching in Iraq.   Strategypage reports -

November 3, 2004: Public opinion in the Arab world is catching up with the attitudes of average Iraqis. The terror campaign by Iraqi Sunni Arabs against other Iraqis, especially the suicide bombs, kidnappings and assassinations, is seen for what it is inside Iraq; an attempt by a minority to re-establish a dictatorship. But the rest of the Arab world has, until recently, glorified the Sunni Arab campaign as the Iraqi "resistance" to "brutal American occupation." But week after week of suicide bombings that kill only Iraqis, thousands of Iraqis kidnapped and murdered by Sunni Arab gangs, and even the slow learners in the Arab world have awakened to a more honest, and less palatable, version of reality. Moreover, government sponsored terror is a tactic familiar to most people in the Arab world. What is happening in Iraq, an attempt by the pro-Saddam Sunni minority to regain control of the country through a terror campaign, is getting harder for most Arabs to avoid. This, however, brings another ugly reality into view. Sunni Islam is hostile to the other forms of Islam, like the Shia of Iraq and Iran. And Arabs are hostile to non-Arab Moslems, like the Iraqi Kurds and most Iranians. The Arab world doesn't really want to confront their own problems with Iraq. That for decades it was a tyranny run by the Sunni Arab minority. This Iraq was acceptable to the Arab world, because Iraqi served as a bulwark against the non-Arab (and non-Sunni) Iranians. Saddam was also admired for how he hammered the Kurds, even using chemical weapons against these rebellious Indo-European people who dared to challenge Sunni Arab rule.

What happened in Iraq during Saddam's rule, and what is happening their now at the hands of Saddam's diehard supporters, is a dark secret in the Arab world. But it is a secret that is increasing difficult to keep hidden. For months, Iraqis have been protesting the distorted reporting, by the Arab media, of the Sunni terror campaign inside Iraq. Even Sunni Arabs who went to Iraq to join the fight, and returned, told of how what was really happening in Iraq did not match what the Arab media was reporting. Then, over the Summer, some of the Arab media began to report stories that most Iraqis could agree with. The interim Iraqi government began to openly denounce the distorted reporting, and point out that this news fantasy only helped the enemies of Iraq who wanted to reinstate dictatorship...

A couple things I wish Strategypage did -

• get working permalinks so I don't have to quote the entire article to make it available for posterity
• SOURCE THE MATERIAL - Past experience with them has given me every reason to believe that StrategyPage is legit, expert, & unbiased but I'd feel much better about thier stuff if they'd link / quote actual primary sources.

Those minor irritations aside, lets take this material at face value and note that if true, it's an important development in Iraq.   As has been noted on this blog and many others over the past few years, the cornerstone of counter-insurgency operations is to separate the insurgent from the host population.   When the host recognizes that it has different goals, ideals, and plans for both the future as well as today, it rather literally drains the swamp in which the insurgency breeds.  

What makes the insurgency in Iraq unique is that the swamp it draws upon isn't just limited to Iraqi borders but is a product of nearly the entire socio-economic system in the broader Middle East.   Consequently, anything that thoroughly discredits the insurgency in Iraq spills over into neighboring countries.   The battle in the streets of Fallujah is almost of secondary importance to the perception battle that rages between the Arab media & leadership and the hordes they attempt to whip up into a conspiratorial frenzy. 

The terrorists more than recognize the singular importance of media in this campaign.  Would the rash of beheadings over the past year - an act of practically zero military / economic value - have happened if that first butcher didn't make the cover of the New York Times?