I realize that the argument I'm about to make is futile in the context of an American Presidential election.  For better or for worse, we like to think that our policies dictate outcomes around the world, regardless of more influential local factors.  Our military buildup policies ended the Cold War, not the bankruptcy of the Soviet Union's economic system.  Our support of Georgia's inclusion in NATO caused the recent conflict there, not the Georgian army's mistreatment of the South Ossetian population.  Any nation as powerful as ours may be forgiven for assuming that our actions make the world go around.  In many cases, we should be more conscious of the effects of our foreign policy throughout the world.

However, there are cases where our policies merely coincide with more significant local events, resulting in a spurious causal attribution.  In the case of the recent reduction in violence in Iraq, the widely-agreed-upon success of the Surge seems like one of these spurious conclusions.  The more likely cause of the good news in Iraq is something that relatively few people have even heard of: the Anbar Awakening. 

I'm still a little fuzzy on all the details, but here's what seems to have happened: several months before the Surge began, Coalition forces began paying off Sunni insurgent groups to stop fighting, and to participate in local pacification operations.  The Sunnis responded by creating local "Awakening Councils" (a.k.a. the Son's of Iraq).  These groups operate like high-impact neighborhood watch groups.  In short, many of the insurgents were paid to become unofficial police contingents.  And it worked to reduce violence.  Which is more likely to result in a 50-60% reduction in violence: a 10% increase in the Coalition force deployment and a tweaking of strategy, or co-opting a major component of the enemy so that we align Sunni and Shiite Iraqis against transnational terror groups? 

It would be pointless for Obama to argue that the Surge is a spurious cause.  Americans tend to know very little about what's happening on the ground in Iraq, and taking this position would draw charges of "America last" from the bombasts on the right.  Furthermore, this is not to say that the Awakening is an unmitigated success.  The past few months, the Iraqi government has been reneging on its commitments to incorporate Awakening personnel, has been targeting Awakening leaders for assassination, and has promised to put them out of business.  This is unfortunate, but inevitable.  The Sons of Iraq undermine the government's monopoly on the legitimate use of force (in other words, its sovereignty).  Having a second sovereign is unworkable in a centralized-power state, but the Sunnis themselves are the most hostile to the prospect of a divided regional governance structure (since they fear losing out on resource revenues: Anbar has no oil). 

So, not only does the Surge seem an unlikely cause of the recent improvements, but the more likely cause, the Awakening, is structurally problematic.  It seems like two things could happen: the Shiite government could be positioning themselves for a final destruction of Iraqi Sunni power, or the Sunnis will abandon the Awakening and return to civil war. 

I'm trying to work through all this, so I strongly invite comments and criticisms.