Several of my colleagues went to Iraq and talked to not only Iraqi leaders (tribal, sunni, shia, government) but also street-level fighters; I talked to my colleagues. This data is second hand, but I know the “data pedigree”, and it is definitely not a sample of the media echo chamber.

The Iraqis report several key factors:

(A) Al-Qaedi acted like monsters. They murdered, tortured and bombed anyone they considered insufficiently islamic and insufficiently supportive of their cause. (Kind of like the Nazis entering Ukraine: greeted with flowers, but later opposed)

They raised anti-american support with the claims that Americans wanted to steal their oil and rape their daughters. After a while, AQ began to collect taxes to fund their insurgency — and torture and kill anyone who resisted paying. Later, they said they had been alone too long and demanded to marry the daughters of the leaders. That is, to prevent the Americans from taking the money and the girls at gunpoint, AQ would take the money and the girls at gunpoint. And as the american soldiers and marines were doing neither, it was a pretty clear choice.

Did I mention that AQ brutally tortured a lot of muslim civilians?

(B) The American soldiers and marines fought well. They fought like real men, hand-to-hand through the grave yard, and they never quit. This won respect in a way that aerial bombing never could. In fact, USAF bombing just made them consider us cowards who could easily be beaten.

(C) Petraeus testified. Then they realized that Bush would not back down, Petraeus would not meekly go home, and Congress could not defund the war. We were a force to be reckoned with (point B) and they could not just wait it out.

Just some facts from the front.