Has Al Qaeda Been Defeated In Iraq?

Michael Yon, reporting from Iraq, believes that al Qaeda has been defeated in Iraq. He's basing this on what he's hearing in Iraq from Iraqis.

Leftists and anti-war types love to claim that al Qaeda had nothing to do with Iraq or that al Qaeda only got involved in Iraq after the US invasion in 2003. That can be debated ad infinitum, but the fact is that al Qaeda has been in Iraq since 2003, and since that terrorist group is responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on 9/11, going after al Qaeda wherever it may be hiding is prudent American national security policy.

Those leftists and anti-US types can now be considered accurate, although the circumstances of why that is the case will be omitted.

They no longer have anything to do with Iraq.

Al Qaeda has been defeated in their own backyard - right in the heart of the Middle East. Al Qaeda has always included rhetoric about creating a caliphate around the world, including the Middle East, and if they cannot win in Iraq, they cannot fulfill their mission statement. That's a huge strategic, tactical, and propaganda hit. If they can be defeated there, they can be defeated elsewhere.

How they were defeated is what will keep historians and military tacticians busy for years to come. It was a combination of new strategy by the US combined with a merciless and brutality imposed by the al Qaeda on a population that simply decided that unending suicide bombings in the name of Islam was too much and sided with the more humane US to defeat those Islamists.

That's not to say that al Qaeda couldnt' come back, or that there aren't still pockets of resistance in the country. There are.

Al Qaeda may adjust its tactics to reflect its ongoing failure to win hearts and minds - namely through flinging hearts and minds into a bloody cloud at every opportunity, but their uncompromising attitude towards bombings and suicide bombings and beheadings isn't about to change. US and Iraqi forces exploiting this have turned much of Iraqi against the foreign fighters and Islamists. That's a good thing in the long run - as long as we can sustain this.

Hot Air has more.