SPIEGEL: In your opinion, which factor has contributed most to bringing calm to the situation in the country?

Maliki: There are many factors, but I see them in the following order. First, there is the political rapprochement we have managed to achieve in central Iraq. This has enabled us, above all, to pull the plug on al-Qaida. Second, there is the progress being made by our security forces. Third, there is the deep sense of abhorrence with which the population has reacted to the atrocities of al-Qaida and the militias. Finally, of course, there is the economic recovery.

Here is what Obama had to say about the "Surge" today:

In an interview with ABC's Terry Moran, Obama said that he "did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii’a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct."

The statement by Maliki (which Obama's statement mirrors) has gotten little, if no attention in the MSM. Instead we keep hearing McCain's screeching about how Obama is not crediting the Surge with the reduction in violence and how "naive" Obama is for not seeing how the "Surge" is the reason he's able to visit there today.

Well, Kevin Drum over at Washington Monthly lists a timeline of events leading up to the "Surge" and draws the same conclusion as Barack Obama.

 

• February 2006: Muqtada al-Sadr orders an end to execution-style killings by Mahdi Army death squads.
• August 2006: Sadr announces a broad ceasefire, which he has maintained ever since.
• September 2006: The Sunni Awakening begins. Tribal leaders, first in Anbar and later in other provinces, start fighting back against al-Qaeda insurgents.
• March 2007: The surge begins.

Say what you will about the surge, which does indeed deserve a share of the credit for reducing violence and increasing security in Baghdad. But it pretty obviously wasn't related to either the Shia militia stand-down or the Sunni Awakening, since both those things began before Petraeus took over in Iraq and before the surge was even a gleam in George Bush's eye. American troops played a role in the Sadr ceasefire and (especially) the Awakening, but the surge itself didn't — and without them, the surge would certainly have failed. Obama has it exactly right.

Calling Keith Olberman!! Will these facts ever filter in to the MSM? I'd like to see Obama and his surrogates push this narrative a little (ok, a LOT) more when he returns to the US. It's a great way to counter McCain's only foreign policy card.