War correspondents are growing frustrated with the lack of attention their stories are getting in newsrooms, according to the New York Times. The story cites a study conducted by Andrew Tyndall which shows that network television news coverage of the Iraq War is getting less than a fifth of the airtime that it got in 2007. cbs News doesn’t even have a full-time war correspondent stationed in Iraq, even though the region is the focal point of the war on terror and 150,000 U.S. troops happen to be deployed there.

The article suggests at least three reasons for war stories being moved to the back burner: security risks, the exorbitant cost of reporting from Iraq, and the intense interest Americans have had in the Democratic presidential primary.

The more plausible explanation for the sparse coverage, of course, is that much of the news coming out of Iraq over the last several months has been positive.

Reported Progress

In an interview with the Washington Post a month ago, cia director Michael Hayden said al Qaeda has experienced “near strategic defeat” in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and has suffered “significant setbacks” globally, including along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In response to the strikingly positive news—which runs counter to the disastrous-Iraq-War cliché—the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, said Hayden’s comments didn’t square with intelligence assessments. “There is no doubt that our superb military has had success against al Qaeda in Iraq over the last year,” Rockefeller reluctantly admitted in a letter to Hayden that was intended more for the media. But these recent improvements in Iraq and against al Qaeda, he said, “represent tactical, not strategic, successes.”

Meanwhile, positive reports from the print media keep trickling in. On June 9, the New York Timesreported, “The deadliest terrorist networks in Southeast Asia have suffered significant setbacks in the past three years, weakened by aggressive policing, improved intelligence, enhanced military operations and an erosion of public support, government officials and counterterrorism specialists say.” The lack of logistical and financial support in the region, the Times reports, has al Qaeda “scrambling for survival.”

Inside Iraq, the New York Timesreported last weekend, violence has reached its lowest point since 2004. “The two largest cities, Baghdad and Basra, are calmer than they have been for years,” the Times wrote. “The third largest, Mosul, is in the midst of a major security operation.” The story pointed to the strides made by the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi government, as well as the overall impact of America’s surge, as reasons for the reduction of violence. Another factor, not often covered by the major media, is Tehran’s decision to rein in its Shiite Iraqi militias. In Basra, for example, Iran brokered a cease-fire earlier this year which ended the heavy fighting.

The Associated Press has also reported recently about a “turning point” in Iraq. “Violence is down, armed extremists are in disarray, government confidence is rising and sectarian communities are gearing up for a battle at the polls rather than slaughter in the streets,” ap wrote. The dispatch noted that these events have received little attention in the United States, but blamed the phenomenon on the “war weary” public—not the antiwar, Iraq-has-been-a-disaster news media.

Conservative columnists have been much more effusive in their praise for the recent success of the American surge. This is how military historian Victor Davis Hanson recently answered the criticism that America took its eye off the ball in Afghanistan by invading Iraq (emphasis mine):

In the first years, the odds were with the terrorists—given indigenous Muslim local populations, the hostile neighborhood of a Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and antiwar fervor at home and abroad. But once the U.S. military defeated al Qaeda in Anbar, the population turned on Islamic terrorists, and the elected Iraqi government gained stature, then Islamists in and out of Iraq suffered a terrible defeat. … While many critics remain too heavily invested in antiwar positions staked out between 2003-07 to cite the war as a contributory cause, the obvious catalyst for al Qaeda’s fiasco is its terrible performance in Iraq.

Ralph Peters highlighted a string of strategic victories for America recently in the New York Post—like luring al Qaeda into Iraq as the “central front” in their jihad against America. And with the support of the Iraqi population, the U.S. and Iraqi forces have inflicted a “massive military defeat on al Qaeda.” At present, Peters wrote, “the terror organization’s own Web masters admit that al Qaeda is nearing final collapse in Iraq.”

Yet, whether viewed as tactical or strategic victories, the recent progress pales in comparison to the Bush administration’s greatest achievement: the fact that America has not been hit by another major terrorist attack since 9/11—a reality no one could have foreseen on 9/12. As Manhattan resident Thane Rosenbaum recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal,

[W]hen a professed enemy succeeds as wildly as al Qaeda did on 9/11, and seven years pass without an incident, there are two reasonable conclusions: either, despite all the trash-talking videos, they have been taking a long, leisurely breather; or, something serious has been done to thwart and disable their operations. Whatever combination of psychology and insanity motivates a terrorist to blow himself up is not within my range of experience, but I’m betting the aggressive measures the president took, and the unequivocal message he sent, might have had something to do with it.

The war against terrorism has not been a problem-free struggle. America has paid a heavy price in waging this war. But it is a price that has unquestionably made us safer.

The question is, will it last?

Strength Spent in Vain

Leviticus 26 is the pivotal prophecy of the Old Testament. We have referred to it numerous times over the years—particularly verse 19, where it says God would break the pride of our power. There is still plenty of power there, we have often written, but the will to use it is being shattered.

On 9/11, after treating more than two decades of terrorist strikes against us as isolated crimes to be prosecuted in courts, Americans finally awakened to the fact that we are engaged in a global war against Islamic extremism. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration decided its strategy in the war would not be limited solely to finding the perpetrators responsible for 9/11 in order to prosecute them in the criminal justice system.

The war strategy, from the beginning, was to prevent another attack.

Whatever one thinks about the administration’s errors and miscalculations along the way, in terms of preventing terrorism on the homeland the president’s strategy has been a phenomenal success. Yet, as the left-leaning Rosenbaum acknowledges in his column, this remarkable achievement has been denied to President Bush “by people who ungratefully availed themselves of the protection that his administration provided.”

And after seven years of intense struggle, the strategy that has afforded us terror-free living at home, is now beginning to make great gains abroad—in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Southeast Asia. But with the radical antiwar movement tightening its stranglehold on the major media and the Democratic Party—while bashing those on the right into submission—how long will these impressive gains hold up?

In the pivotal Leviticus 26 prophecy, right after describing our broken will, God says, “And your strength shall be spent in vain” (verse 20). Iran, as noted above, has been instrumental in reining in the violence in Iraq for its own ends. A stable and U.S.-free Iraq is in Iran’s best interests. But an Iraq under the influence of Iran is not in the U.S.’s best interests. For short-term gain in Iraq, it could be that America has put Iran in prime position to take over Iraq—particularly with President Bush soon leaving the White House.

In November, if the American electorate opts for the antiwar candidate, we could see these dramatic, end-time prophecies accelerate even further. According to his official website, Barack Obama promises to begin removing U.S. troops from Iraq immediately, if elected. Within 16 months, he says, all combat brigades would be withdrawn; no permanent U.S. bases would be set up in Iraq and the only troops left behind would be those responsible for guarding our embassy and protecting diplomats.

In other words, everything would return to the world of 9/10.

That’s what worries cia director Michael Hayden. During his interview with the Washington Post, even after giving a positive assessment of the war against terror, he expressed concern that these gains might “be halted or reversed because of what he considers growing complacency and a return to the mindset that existed before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”

Thousands of years ago, God said we would have awesome power in this end time—but without an ironclad will to go with it. Furthermore, He prophesied that we would even flex our military muscle by using our vast array of firepower. But that impressive show of strength would eventually be spent in vain. However the details play out, God’s Word will be proven true!