reality-based educator

Senator Lindsey Graham told Wolf Blitzer this on CNN's Late Edition this morning:

BLITZER: Senator Graham, it looks like a truly horrible situation, at least painted on this day in Iraq. You were there not all that long ago. Do you see any light at all at the end of this tunnel?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Yes, I see hope, very much so. I'm not going to let the car bombers of the moment dictate foreign policy for decades to come. Israel's lived with this. We're going to have to live with it in Iraq, and hopefully it never comes here, but it might one day. And you just have to adapt to an enemy who's always adapting.

Anbar province is substantially different than when I was there six months ago. It's probably the biggest success story there is to talk about in Iraq, where the sheikhs have aligned with us against Al Qaida, and there's been a fundamental change on the ground in Anbar.

There are parts of Baghdad that are very dangerous. There are parts of Baghdad that are safer than they were before, but still not yet safe. They're moving into Diyala province, they're trying to destabilize the north.

The enemy is a thinking enemy, is an adapting enemy, but, yes, I do see progress from the surge, very much.

Here's today's "progress from the surge" update from Iraq:

BAGHDAD — Nearly 4,000 U.S. troops, supported by helicopters, fighter jets and unmanned aerial vehicles, were searching Sunday for three American soldiers who disappeared after a weekend attack that killed four other Americans and their Iraqi translator.

Elsewhere in Iraq, in one of the deadliest days in recent weeks, at least 137 people killed or found dead. A suicide truck bomb tore through the offices of a Kurdish political party in northern Iraq, killing 50 people, and a car bombing in a crowded Baghdad market killed another 17.

...

Insurgents struck across the country Sunday, with a suicide bomber in northern Iraq slamming a truck into local offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani, leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

Cars were charred and crushed by the blast, in Makhmur, a town with a substantial Kurdish population that lies just south of the autonomous Kurdish-controlled areas. The attack was the second suicide bombing in Kurdish areas in four days.

At least one car flipped over and its tires were apparently incinerated. A group of people hurriedly pulled what appeared to be a dead body out of a car. A small building appeared to have been destroyed, reduced to a pile of bricks. Others had their walls blown out.

...

At least 50 people were killed and 115 were wounded, including the city's mayor, Abdul Rahman Delaf, who also is a prominent Kurdish writer, and the director of the KDP office, said Ziryan Othman, the health minister of the Kurdish regional government. The blast also killed a local police chief.

In Baghdad, a parked car exploded near the popular Sadriyah market in the center of the city at 2:45 p.m., killing at least 17 people and wounding 46, police said.

AP Television News footage showed a crater in the ground filled with debris, splintered wood, metal and a tire. A white truck appeared to be crumpled by the blast.

"I saw pools of blood and charred pieces of flesh," said Firas Fhadil, the owner of a nearby electrical appliances shop.

Market workers used fruit carts to evacuate the casualties, because road closures made it difficult for ambulances to reach the area, he said.

Sadriyah has been hit by several blasts usually blamed on Sunni insurgents, suspected of targeting commercial areas to kill as many large numbers of people and derail the Baghdad security crackdown that began 12 weeks ago.

On April 18, 127 people were killed in a car bombing in the same area — one of four bombings that day that killed a total of 183 people.

You can just smell all the progress we're seeing from the surge.

Unfortunately the smell is a mixture of blood, charred flesh, burnt metal, and sulfur.