The twin pillars of McCain's assessment of the Iraq war, which began in March 2003, are a) the surge in U.S. troop numbers carried out in the first half of 2007 worked, and b) because the surge worked, the U.S. armed forces are now winning in Iraq. But neither of those views is based in fact.

McCain's first assertion represents the long-recognized logical fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc: that is to say, because one event occurred after another, it was a consequence of the first event. Because the cock crows before sunrise, he thinks he makes The Sun come up. Because violence in Iraq dropped after the surge, McCain, the Republican standard-bearer for the fall presidential contest, claims the surge caused the reduction in violence.

McCain, R-Ariz., is quick to add that he supported the surge at the time it was carried out, which Obama, the putative Democratic presidential nominee, did not. In the real world, however, neither senator has quite so much reason to be so sure of his argument.

The reduction in violence in Iraq over the past year and a half is, in fact, likely to prove only temporary. It can be attributed in reality to four causes, the least of which is the surge in the number of U.S. troops.

In order of importance, those causes are:

First, al-Qaida's alienation of much of its Sunni Muslim base in central Iraq, a consequence of its attempt to impose its puritanical version of Islam before it won the war and consolidated power.

This is a common error of revolutionary movements. The smart ones back off and take a "broad front" strategy until the war is won, at which point they cut their "moderate" allies' throats. However, al-Qaida's non-hierarchical structure, coupled with the message it employs to recruit, may prevent it from adopting a broad-front strategy. If so, that may prove a fatal weakness to the group achieving its own long-term strategic and political goals in Iraq.

Second, a change in policy by U.S. Marines in Anbar province, whereby they stopped attacking the Sunni population and started paying it money instead. As the FMFM 1-A Field Manual on Fourth Generation war argues, in 4GW cash is the most important supporting arm. The Marines' new policy, which now has spread to the U.S. Army and beyond Anbar, enabled the locals to turn on al-Qaida and its brutally enforced Islamic Puritanism.

Third, U.S. Gen. David Petraeus' decision to move U.S. troops off their forward operating bases and into populated areas where they could protect the population instead of merely protecting themselves.

Fourth and least, the surge, which made more troops available for Point Three. Absent the other three developments, the surge in U.S. troop numbers would have achieved nothing.

--

(In Part 2: Why current U.S. policy is failing to create an effective national state in Iraq.)

--

(William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation.)