Last February, Senator Hillary Clinton proposed to cap the number of American troops in Iraq at their level on January 1, 2007--roughly 140,000--and begin a withdrawal within 90 days.

The purpose of her bill was stated in section 2:

If the President follows the provisions of this Act, the United States should be able to complete a redeployment of United States troops from Iraq by the end of the current term in office of the President.

That wasn't all Clinton had in mind. Should the Bush administration and the Iraqi government fail to meet "certain conditions" within 90 days, American troops would no longer be authorized to stay in Iraq. Clinton's conditions were tough and sweeping, including the convening of a conference on Iraq to "involve the international community and Iraq's neighbors" and the stripping of "sectarian and militia influences" from Iraqi security forces.

The Clinton measure was never voted on. But it contained the major elements--a troop drawdown, emphasis on diplomacy, pressure on the Iraqi government--of the "responsible" strategy for salvaging American interests now that the war in Iraq had been lost. At least that's how Democrats, liberals, more than a few Republicans, the foreign policy establishment, most of the media, and a majority of Americans questioned by pollsters saw the situation.

Now imagine if the Clinton plan had become law. Nine months after she submitted her bill, we can speculate about what it would have produced. Sectarian violence would probably have exploded, al Qaeda would have been left with a large, secure sanctuary west of Baghdad, Iranian interference in Iraq would have increased, the prospects for democracy and stability would have dimmed. And that's just for starters.

We don't have to speculate, however, about what Clinton would have prevented. That's not a matter of guesswork. The successes from deploying more American troops in Iraq and taking up the counterinsurgency strategy of General David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, would not have occurred. If Clinton had prevailed, the surge would have been impossible.

The same is true for practically every other proposal considered by the Democratic Congress on Iraq. Whatever the goal of the "responsible" plans--to end the war quickly, set a timetable for troop reductions, remove American troops from a combat role, focus the American effort solely on training the Iraqi army, make deployment of troops to Iraq more difficult, cut funding--the effect would have been to preclude the surge.

Like Clinton's bill, the "responsible" proposals were all based on the premise that the war in Iraq was lost. Now, the surge is proving that premise wrong. But had any of the proposals been enacted, we wouldn't have known this. We wouldn't have discovered the war is winnable and indeed now is being won, thanks to the surge.

What has the surge achieved? Al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq. The Sunni insurgency is rapidly waning. Sunni sheikhs have joined with American forces. More recently, Shia sheikhs have helped American troops to suppress the Mahdi Army of Moktada al-Sadr, the pro-Iranian mullah. Political reconciliation is stirring in the Iraqi provinces as sectarian turmoil eases. Oil revenues are being shared. Civilian and U.S. military deaths have fallen sharply. Iraq is less violent, more stable. These accomplishments are directly or indirectly attributable to the surge.