My friends at Power Line noticed an interesting part of the Associated Press report on the operations in Mosul to destroy al-Qaeda in Iraq’s last territorial stronghold. Nouri al-Maliki left Mosul and returned to Baghdad when Nancy Pelosi showed up in a surprise visit, and apparently the surprise went both ways. Pelosi sounded like General David Petraeus, although I doubt the suspension of disbelief was all that willing:

The prime minister returned to Baghdad from Mosul — where he has been overseeing the crackdown — to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who made a surprise visit to Iraq on Saturday.

Pelosi, a top Democratic critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, expressed confidence that expected provincial elections will promote national reconciliation.

She welcomed Iraq’s progress in passing a budget as well as oil legislation, and a bill paving the way for the provincial elections in the fall that are expected to more equitably redistribute power among local officials.

“We’re assured the elections will happen here, they will be transparent, they will be inclusive and they will take Iraq closer to the reconciliation we all want it to have,” said Pelosi. She also met with Iraq’s parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq.

Pelosi, who also traveled to Iraq in January 2007 shortly after the Democrats assumed congressional control, has been a sharp critic of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war and has pressed for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country this year.

Let’s see. Iraqi Army taking control of national security — check. Maliki building support from Sunnis and Kurds — check. Congressional benchmarks for provincial elections, de-Baathification reform, oil revenue distribution, and general national reconciliation being met — check.

And Nancy Pelosi acknowledging all of these signs of the surge’s success … checkmate.

Power Line wonders whether this might be the start of a new tactic by Democrats to declare the war won and demand that the US bring the troops home. That would certainly sound better than Harry Reid’s declaration of defeat on the floor of the Senate, which also included a demand to retreat at full speed from a war we have now all but won. In an election year, it might sound quite a bit better, but it would also remind people that Democratic leadership has absolutely no idea what it’s doing in terms of military strategy and tactics, and instead react like frightened sheep to each news flash.

I suspect that Pelosi’s analysis will change significantly when she returns to American soil. For that reason, we’ll just keep this AP report on file here at Hot Air, in case anyone decides to rewrite history.