Training, time and personalities. Iraqis, like all human beings, learn by being exposed to new things and doing, and the most important new things that they are exposed to are their American advisors. This is why, despite the focus on the troop surge, I've come to believe that the best way to win the military aspect* of Iraq is the "go long" strategy centered around American advisorship, with the caveat that Americans take back greater authority over or at least influence with some of the broken bureaucratic paradigms that have been prematurely handed over to often dysfunctional Iraqi management. American advisors should have input on hiring and firing Iraqi leadership and ensuring that pay and supplies are accounted for, at least until the insular "attitude [is] ... trained out of them" and functioning systems are in place to limit inefficiency and corruption.

The cultural challenges are steep, but that's where "personalities" - naturally overlooked in strategic talk of troop levels and policy - can have such a revolutionary impact. Examples:

1. Xenophobic Fallujan cops who harbor distrust for their American advisors start to come around after extended exposure to embedded PiTT Marines. These interactions - from Navy corpsmen who treat wounded police and their families, to IP leadership working with PiTT leadership, to junior marines giving IPs affectionate nicknames - can cause a change in relationships that influences a passive institutional culture ... slowly and frustratingly at times, but incrementally.

2. A U.S. Army Captain can wield enough diplomatic skill to win an honorary tribal title and a police station posthumously named in his honor. Concurrently, a local sheik can step up to lead his people against the insurgents.

3. Facilitated by American advisorship and certain Iraqi leaders, local Fallujan police and the Iraqi Army have begun to get over their historical mistrust and work well together, with the relationship solidified by a series of successful joint raids on a common enemy. This cooperation and the raids themselves were a direct result of encouragement from MiTT and PiTT members and US Special Forces involved in both training and establishing the methods of communication.

Many, many more examples are taking place in Iraq right now.

Overcoming cultural, historical and institutional obstacles while training Iraqi security forces is daunting - I think that my coverage has probably underplayed both the challenge and the extreme level of frustration among Americans trying to accomplish a mission while dealing with an alien and often less "effective" culture. But I think it's probably doable.

And the flaws in this effort - ceding American authority to influence broken equations being the most significant error - are undoubtedly a direct result of the strategy's acceleration in light of domestic political pressure.

Contingent upon political frame of reference, the situation in Iraq is often so much more positive, negative and complex than either side of the aisle tends to characterize it.

More on this later.

* Please note that "the military aspect of Iraq" exclusively deals with establishing effective and sustainable security forces and is a distinct issue from the political issues facing Iraq's central government.