I watched Obama's segment on 60 Minutes tonight. When asked about the success of the surge, he fell into the same trap that always gets him. He acknowledged that our troops have done a great job quelling the violence and changed the subject. He has to develop a more compelling approach to the surge.

The surge isn't all it's cracked up to be.  As great as our troops are, it isn't so much the surge and the troops that have brought the level of violence down so dramatically. A much more potent cause is the fact that the so-called "Sunni Awakening" occurred just before the surge started. Because of this, the Sunnis switched sides and began playing on our team, instead of for al Qaeda in Iraq.

As important as this development was, the physical separation of Sunnis and Shiites that occurred due to ethnic cleansing was an even more important factor in the reduction of violence. The militias and mobs have killed so many people and driven so many out of neighborhoods in which they were in the minority that there are no longer large numbers of Sunnis and Shiites living in close proximity. Very simply, there are very few mixed neighborhoods left, so the fuel for large-scale ethnic violence no longer exists.

Consequently, instead of mildly demurring or meekly agreeing that the surge has been an unqualified success, Obama should argue that the surprising Sunni Awakening and thorough ethnic cleansing are the main reasons why ethnic violence is down in Iraq.