J.D. JOHANNES BLOGS FROM IRAQ:

Ah yes, just 7 months ago Al Anbar was “lost.”

Amidst my travels to neighborhood watch centers and police stations where local Sunni Muslims who have porn on their cell phones are playing hard ball against AQIZ types who would ban porn on cell phones I forgot all about this article in the WaPo last September.

Anbar is so “lost” now politically that there is a waiting list for anbaris to join the IA and IP.

It is so lost, that in the AO I hope to visit next the local Sheiks have declared war on AQIZ and the neighboring tribe supporting AQIZ.

It is so lost, the local neighborhood watch centers deliver captured IEDs to Marine Combat Outposts.

It is so wildly stinking lost that…wait, it is not lost.

In fact, the situation has flipped so much in 7 months that the heavy lifting in Al Anbar may be coming to a close–the heavy lifting being the political work of flipping the tribes to support the coalition and take charge of their own security.

He’ll be talking about this on Hannity & Colmes tonight, in just a few minutes.

UPDATE: Oops — I misread the email. The post is J.D.’s, but it’s David Chavarria, the executive producer of Outside the Wire, their documentary.

And wow, Alan Colmes is acting really defensive, while Chavarria is really calm and informational. Chavarria explained what the troops think, as shown in the documentary, Colmes started arguing with him, and Chavarria just calmly explained that he wasn’t arguing politics, he was reporting what the troops said.