Michael Yon has spent more time "embedded" with the United States Military in Iraq than any other journalist. As of 2008, he believes the United States is winning the war in Iraq:
We can win this war. And if we do, it will be a victory of the same magnitude as the fall of the Soviet Union. It will not be a victory for the Republican Party. It will not be a victory for America and Great Britain and others "against" Iraq. It will be a victory for freedom and justice. It will be a victory for Iraqis and the wold, and only then will it be a victory for us.
A stable, reasonably democratic, and friendly Arab country will have been established in the heart of the Middle East. Al Qaeda will have been defeated not only militarily but morally, rejected by the very Muslims they claim to represent.
--Moment of Truth In Iraq, p. 226
al Qaeda claims to be on a divine mission to set up a caliphate; a pan-Muslim government that will restore the glory of the fourteenth century. But when given the opportunity, they proved completely unwilling and unfit to govern:
For al Qaeda, Iraq as just one front in their battle to humiliate and exhaust America--their strategy in Iraq was to provoke a civil war between Sunni and Shia. It was a tempting strategy, but al Qaeda militants are not smart insurgents. They know how to kill people and break things, but that's where their skill sets end. Once they have gained control of and responsibility for a territory, they can only offer terror. They do not know or care how to run a village, much less a city or nation. The locals came to view al Qaeda as degenerates and less than swine--using drugs, laying up sloppy drunk, using prostitutes, raping women and boys, and cutting off heads--while at the same time they are imposing strict morality laws on the locals. In 2007 in Baghdad, an army intelligence officer told me that one of his best sources in their area as a gay al Qaeda member; when his al Qaeda lovers mistreated him, he would pass along intelligence to get them killed or captured.
--Moment of Truth in Iraq, pp. 89-90
How will we win in Iraq? Our military capacity is certainly necessary, but not sufficient:
Before the war, our people had no street credibility in Iraq. Iraqis thought American soldiers were soft and that body armor was a type of personal air conditioner. If the Iraqis had known back then...about American willingness to suffer and fight, it's doubtful that Saddam would have taunted us.
Of course we swept them off the mail battlefields quickly, but that could be and often was chalked up to our money and our machines. It was only after, when they saw that our people were better street fighters too, and that American combat soldiers would match our outlast them in the heat, that they began to understand.
--Moment of Truth in Iraq, pp. 161-162
Not only can the Americans fight, but they know how to build a society:
[The] job of kick-starting the government fell on the shoulders of the American commanders because most of the experienced local leaders [in Baqubah] were either living abroad or had been victims of al Qaeda. The new leaders had little experience, or lacked the natural instinct to solve the many problems their city faced. So our soldiers mentored Iraqi civil leaders. In meeting after meeting, American military leaders revealed an important yet hidden collective skill set: they know how to run a city.
How is it that a group of commanders seem to understand how to run a city? Because they do it all the time, even at home.
The American military governs city-states--bases--all over the world. A commander who runs an American military base in Iraq is referred to as the "Mayor", and he or she must understand the vital functions of a city and how it operates. This includes water, electricity, sewage, food distribution, police, courts, prisons, hospitals, fire, schools, airports, ports, trash control, vector control, communications, fuel, and fiscal budgeting, for example. Base commanders in the U.S. must deal with local political leaders; base commanders abroad must be international diplomats.
--Moment of Truth in Iraq, pp. 142-143
In this asymmetrical conflict, al Qaeda is attacking the weak link the United States ability to project force--our media-driven, opinion-based public decision making process. Al Qaeda knows they can never win a stand-up fight, but they hope to win like the North Vietnamese won in the 1970s--by simply convincing us to quit.
But unlike Vietnam, the United States Military has discovered how to asymmetrically attack al Qaeda. We know how to run a free, successful society--and are demonstrating to the Iraqis that we can teach the Iraqis to succeed too. More and more Iraqis are figuring out that the al Qaeda promises are false, and that the Americans really do want them to succeed.
That's how we will win.
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