Shi'ite militias have been confronted and shut down, including "rogue" Mahdi elements. Sadr City is no longer a sanctuary for death squads. If the Mahdis continue to stand down, the pacification of Sadr City may come sooner than expected -- and the surge will have proven itself successful.

First, Lt. General David Petraeus, PhD, Princeton graduate, former Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), former head of the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq (the command responsible for training Iraqi forces), and author of Army FM 23-4, “a field manual devoted exclusively to counterinsurgency operations” (emphasis added), was named Commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq, and tasked with putting his field manual into practice.

Second – and perhaps most important – the rules of engagement in Iraq were adjusted to provide for more effective targeting of insurgents and insurgent leaders (as well as forces from Iran). With this alteration in strategy, the troops on the ground can concentrate once again on rooting out and arresting or killing terrorists and insurgents, instead of having to completely restrict their operations, out of fear of upsetting the fragile Iraqi governing coalition (not to mention setting off a media firestorm, which is always a threat), to driving back and forth on the same IED-infested roads and performing the same “show of force” or security missions, day-in and day-out, with little to show for it except for more dead or wounded troops.

Third, more pressure was to be put on the Iraqi government to crack down on sectarian violence and on insurgent leaders like Muqtada al-Sadr, and to work harder and more quickly toward self-sufficience, both in governance and in security.

Fourth, in order to support the other three elements of his “new way forward in Iraq,” the President announced that a “surge” of 21,500 more troops would be sent to the Iraqi theater, both to secure Baghdad and to facilitate the implementation of LG Petraeus’s counterinsurgency, defense training, and stabilization plan.