I reckon I should not pretend to be smarter than Generals - I'll leave that to Howard Dean. But this just seems to obvious to me.

June and July were very good months for US forces in Iraq. Over just six weeks of aggressive fighting the US detained thousands of suspected Iraqi militants in hundreds of military raids. The Sunni triangle was shrinking. At the height of the new offensive militant attacks against US forces had been cut in half. By early August several days in a row passed without the loss of single US soldier in combat -- a seemingly inconsequential but notable feat.

But in a repeat of early summer's bad conventional wisdom we're again mired in debates about troop strength and foreign control. How'd we get back there? Quite simply, somebody in the chain of command ignored the notable advice of Gen. George S. Patton -- "Always take the offensive. Never dig in."

It's a good read.