KARL ZINSMEISTER says the war is over and we won:

Your editor returned to Iraq in April and May of 2005 for another embedded period of reporting. I could immediately see improvements compared to my earlier extended tours during 2003 and 2004. The Iraqi security forces, for example, are vastly more competent, and in some cases quite inspiring. Baghdad is now choked with traffic. Cell phones have spread like wildfire. And satellite TV dishes sprout from even the most humble mud hovels in the countryside.

Many of the soldiers I spent time with during this spring had also been deployed during the initial invasion back in 2003. Almost universally they talked to me about how much change they could see in the country. They noted progress in the attitudes of the people, in the condition of important infrastructure, in security.

This will come as news to many people. Austin Bay noted similar progress in his most recent column, but was also quite hard on the Bush Administration for not explaining what is going on with the war, and why.

UPDATE: G-Scobe thinks that Zinsmeister is being irresponsibly optimistic.

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