Fallujah, Iraq.  The Marines of 1st Platoon, Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines - many from New Jersey - aren't living large, but they're making a huge difference. Bunking in a police precinct headquarters in Fallujah, they're at the forward edge of our current successes in Iraq.

It's summertime, but the living ain't easy. The work's tough, the heat's wicked, the "facilities" conjure the old line about what bears do in the woods, and only goodie boxes from home liven up a diet of field rations (great for two or three days, nasty after two or three months).

You'd expect complaints. I didn't hear one. And talking to three Jersey boys, I was surprised to hear just how positive they felt about the mission.

"I'd do it again in a heartbeat," Lance Cpl. Justin Blitzstein of West Milford told me. Self-assured and ready for anything, he added, "Anybody who doesn't think we should be here should see the difference we've made in the way these people live. And everybody here's a volunteer. We want to be here."

Baghdad. "Al Qaeda's worn out their welcome," Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno told me.

Probably the tallest, and just maybe the toughest, man in Iraq, the Rockaway, New York native also has a vigorous intellect at odds with the stereotype of generals.  Even though he looks like he could've had a parallel career in the World Wrestling Federation.

In a forthright interview, the commanding general of the Multinational Corps-Iraq - the man who leads the day-to-day fight in support of Gen. David Petraeus - noted that, while foreign terrorists remain a threat, al Qaeda's been wounded so deeply by the Sunni Arab shift against them that he now feels other issues take priority.

He outlined them for me.

Every political season gives birth to one or two instant clichés. Outside of politics, a phrase often takes generations to be spoiled as an effective term by long familiarity, or to become dull and meaningless by overuse. In today's politics, a genuine cliché can be created in a month due to its intense repetition by TV and print pundits as well as by a myriad of bloggers.

But at least non-political clichés have the advantage of pointing out something usually true. Go outside at 4 a.m. and you will note the truth of the cliché that it is always darkest before the dawn. Have a small tear in a piece of clothing promptly sewed up and you learn that a stitch in time does save nine (stitches). Or perhaps, more accurately, don't have it promptly repaired and have to pay for extensive stitching.

But this season's premier political clichés are already both hackneyed and trite, while having no obvious truth to them. I am referring to the claims that Sen. Barack Obama would bring "real change to America," while Sen. Hillary Clinton would bring "extensive experience to the office."

The Democrats, after spending the winter, spring and early summer frantically calling for getting out of Iraq as fast as their little feet can carry them, are now, as autumn approaches, demonstrating their Olympic-class back-pedaling skills.

By winter (with the complicity of the drive-by media) the Democrats hope to expunge the historic record of their failure of war nerve this spring. This is the moment for Republicans from the president, to the candidates for president, to the incumbents and challengers for offices all the way down to dog catcher (and especially dog catcher) to remind the public of the springtime Democrat Party defeatism and lost nerve.

The leadership of the Democrat Party has, by its public words this spring, disgraced themselves for a generation. Republicans have the right - and the duty - to engrave in the public mind the springtime Democrat perfidy and cowardice in the face of the enemy.

On Tuesday, August 14, Al Qaeda terrorists detonated four massive truck bombs in three Iraqi villages, killing at least 250 civilians (perhaps as many as 500) and wounding many more. The bombings were a sign of Al Qaeda's frustration, desperation and fear.

Al Qaeda has been badly battered. It's lost top leaders and thousands of cadres. Even more painful for the Islamists, they've lost ground among the people of Iraq, including former allies. Iraqis got a good taste of Al Qaeda. Now they're spitting it out.

Thus the purpose of these dramatic bombings is that Al Qaeda needs to portray Iraq as a continuing failure of U.S. policy. Those dead and maimed Iraqis were just props: The intended audience was Congress

The foreign terrorists slaughtering the innocent recognize that their only remaining hope of pulling off a come-from-way-behind win is to convince your senator and your congressman or -woman that it's politically expedient to hand a default victory to a defeated Al Qaeda.

Sometimes where a thing is said is bigger news than what was said. That happened on Monday, when The New York Times ran a guest op-ed entitled A War We Just Might Win detailing the progress in Iraq. 

Long before the fall of Baghdad, The New York Times was as dogmatically pessimistic about the Bush administration's efforts as it was gushingly supportive of Joseph Stalin in the 1930s. It even promoted the least-qualified op-ed writer in North America as its point man for its attacks on our military: Frank Rich, whose experience was with ballet slippers, not combat boots.

Frank must feel like a dying swan just now.

What did the column in Monday's Times say? Exactly what TTPer have known for months:

To a military professional, the tactical progress made in Iraq over the last few months is impressive.  To a member of Congress, it's an annoyance.

The herd animals on Capitol Hill -- from both parties -- just can't wait to go over the cliff on Iraq.  And even when the media mention one or two of the successes achieved by our troops, the reports are grudging.

Yet what's happening on the ground, right now, in Baghdad and in Iraq's most-troubled provinces, contributes directly to your security.  In the words of a senior officer known for his careful assessments, al Qaeda's terrorists in Iraq are "on their back foot and we're trying to knock them to their knees."

Do our politicians really want to help al Qaeda regain its balance?

[In celebration of the Fourth of July, To The Point is pleased to provide this transcript of a lecture given by Dr. Lawrence Mead, Professor of Politics at New York University, delivered in Sydney, Australia on July 1^st]

To read the newspapers, one would believe US power was in steep decline. There are prophets of error, the many critics who believe US foreign policy has gone seriously wrong, especially in Iraq.

And there are prophets of weakness, such as Yale historian Paul Kennedy, who wrote even before the end of the Cold War that the US had succumbed to "imperial overstretch". How much more are we overstretched today when we face crises in three or four places across the globe?

I am skeptical about these arguments. The great fact is that the US has become a dominant nation. Even if the US fails in Iraq, there still is no other country that can replace the US in dealing with the world's problems.

We have in fact returned to a world order similar to the late Victorian period, at the end of the 19th century. Then, as now, the world economy was globalizing and English was its lingua franca. Britain was the strongest single country and the US was just becoming a world power.

Today, the US is first and Britain is second, but remarkably little else has changed. It is as if the 20th century, with its calamitous wars and ideological conflict, has faded away. The countries that challenged the Anglos - first Germany, then Russia, then Japan - have all fallen back. The US's challengers, such as China and India, are likely to fall back as well.