Some times in a grudge match it’s hard to know when you’ve turned the corner. Whether the light at the end of the tunnel represents sunshine – or an oncoming freight train:

The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.

But as the White House and its military commanders plan the next phase of the war, other officials have cautioned against taking what they see as a premature step that could create strategic and political difficulties for the United States.

Are they really beaten, or just lying low and reconstituting? Fleeing the battlefield entirely, or is this a case of reculer pour mieux sauter? In Afghanistan perhaps? Or somewhere closer to home? It’s probably too soon to say, but not too late to hope. We used to know how to dare to hope.

AQI was always the agent of the most shocking violence in Iraq, and the catalyst that sparked so much sectarian bloodshed. Even crushing them entirely would not by itself heal that nation’s many wounds. Too many agents of despair and mistrust still move about in the darkness, people who reckon their personal prestige by the amount of hatred they can stir up and who cherish their carefully nurtured grudges.

And that’s just in the blogosphere.

But if AQI is beaten, if this is true, it would mark not the beginning of the end, but rather the end of the beginning. And it would be a damned good start.

There are of course those who consider any good news coming out of Iraq to be, well – terrible news. They’ll find plenty of good company over on the other side of the issue, saying it can’t be true. Because. And even if it is true then let’s just pack it in before we can consolidate our gains.

And anyway, what about Blackwater?!?1?

Because the narrative must be protected.