Section9: I suspect that it will be some ten years before people look back on Bush’s decision to stick with Petraeus’ plan in 2006 as the decisive moment in the War on Terror.

You mean the decisive moment in the Occupation of Iraq, if an occupation can be said to have a moment of decision. The Iraq War was finished in May of 2003 (“Mission Accomplished”), a clear Coalition victory. The War on Terror is up that-a-way, towards Afghanistan and Pakistan, back where Obama wants to shift our focus when he accepts the job opening for War Czar on 1/20/09.