Amazing As It May Seem…

I wholeheartedly agree with Hillary Clinton.

Austin Bay has details of her recent trip to Iraq with several other Senators:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – As 55 people died in Iraq on Saturday, the holiest day on the Shiite Muslim religious calendar, Sen. Hillary Clinton said that much of Iraq was “functioning quite well” and that the rash of suicide attacks was a sign that the insurgency was failing.

Clinton, a New York Democrat, said insurgents intent on destabilizing the country had failed to disrupt Iraq’s landmark Jan. 30 elections.

“The concerted effort to disrupt the elections was an abject failure. Not one polling place was shut down or overrun,” Clinton told reporters inside the U.S.-protected Green Zone, a sprawling complex of sandbagged buildings surrounded by blast walls and tanks. The zone is home to the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy…

…The fact that you have these suicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me, an indication of their failure,” Clinton said.

Clinton, to her credit, gets the situation in Iraq. She has the political savvy of her husband, and she understands that the defeatism of other Democrats such as Sen. Kennedy puts them on the wrong side of history. The people of Iraq are slowly but surely challenging the terrorists, and they’re slowly but surely winning. The recent violence over the Ashura holiday is an attempt to further divide the Shi’ites and the Sunnis — the same strategy that was tried and failed last year. The insurgency is losing tactically, and they’re losing strategically. Operations are beginning to roll back the al-Zawahiri terrorist group as another member of al-Zawhiri’s group has been caught by Iraqi police. The number of captures of close Zarqawi associates is growing – which indicates that Zarqawi himself may be next.

The situation in Iraq remains fluid, but the Shi’ites have every reason of self-interest to pursue a democratic Iraq. If the Iraqi experiment in democracy falters, the Shi’ites will once again be at the mercy of Sunnis, this time led by the Wahhabists. They’ve no reason to desire that. Nor do the Iraqi Shi’a follow in the theocratic school of the Iranian Shi’a. Ayatollah al-Sistani has followed a relatively hands-off approach, allowing the democratic process to play itself out. He is following in the footsteps of his mentor, the Ayatollah al-Khoei, which bodes well for the future of Iraq.

Senator Clinton clearly understands the situation in the way the media and the defeatists do not — one wonders how long before the increasingly radicalized Democratic establishment turns on her as a Bush apologist…