Don’t book your spring break in Baghdad just yet, but Iraq has finally taken a turn for the better. You wouldn’t know it from reading the headlines, of course, because the war hasn’t been in the headlines lately. It’s been eclipsed by Iran, by Pakistan and by Iowa and New Hampshire. That doesn’t mean there’s less news out of Iraq — just less bad news.

“The evidence is now overwhelming that the ‘surge’ of U.S. military forces in Iraq this year has been, in purely military terms, a remarkable success,” the Washington Post editorialized Sunday. “By every metric used to measure the war — total attacks, U.S. casualties, Iraqi casualties, suicide bombings, roadside bombs — there has been an enormous improvement since January. U.S. commanders report that al-Qaeda has been cleared from large areas it once controlled and that its remaining forces in Iraq are reeling. Markets in Baghdad are reopening, and the curfew is being eased; the huge refugee flow out of the country has begun to reverse itself.”

Given the illusory turning points of the past — Saddam’s capture, democratic elections, al-Zarqawi’s death — a few qualifications are in order before anyone dusts off the “Mission Accomplished” banner.

1) Iraq, while much safer than a few months ago, remains far from safe.

2) Overall, the war in Iraq has been a disaster from an American standpoint —its few benefits far outweighed by its costs in blood, treasure and global good will.

3) Military success, while crucial, remains secondary. If we don’t translate it into a political settlement among Iraq’s warring factions, the current lull in violence will be just that — a lull.

Still, we shouldn’t dismiss the important victories made possible by the surge, if only because they fly in the face of the conventional wisdom that prevailed in Washington only months ago, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-N.V.) and other prominent Democrats declared the war lost. At the time, the left seemed in the right — the situation in Iraq had been steadily deteriorating since the 2003 invasion, and particularly since al Qaeda’s February 2006 bombing of a Shi’ite shrine ignited a country-wide civil war. Calls by the Democrats for America to cut its losses seemed sensible and inevitable. The push for more troops seemed futile, an irresponsible attempt by war supporters to “double down.” So far, it appears, that gamble has paid off.

“Credit for these achievements,” the Post acknowledged, “belongs in large part to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, who took on a tremendously challenging new counterterrorism strategy and made it work; to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of that strategy; and to President Bush, for making the decision to launch the surge against the advice of most of Congress and the country’s foreign policy elite.”

It belongs foremost, however, to the man who advocated more troops from the beginning: Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.). McCain, you might remember, was still the Republican frontrunner in January, when Bush finally heeded his recommendation. John Edwards and other Democrats began to brand the surge the “McCain doctrine,” tying the Arizona senator to a seemingly doomed policy. Republicans began to turn on McCain in large part because his unwavering support for the war made him seem vulnerable in a general election. McCain stuck to his guns, however, insisting that he’d “rather lose a campaign than lose a war.”

Contrast that with Hillary Clinton, whose war stance — or stances, more accurately — could be predicted at any given time by a political weather vane. If past history is any guide with respect to Iraq, America’s wisest course going forward would be to hear what Senator Clinton has to say … and do exactly the opposite. Clinton blindly and loudly supported the invasion despite having not even read the intelligence reports that crossed her desk. She proceeded to support the occupation’s status quo even when it had become clear that Bush had no strategy for victory or exit. She only began to echo her base’s calls for swift withdrawal after she announced she was running for president — just when America had started getting it right in Iraq.

Clinton’s calculations may help her win her party’s nomination and the presidency, but they won’t help America chart an honorable end to this war.

It’s incumbent that we adopt a forward-looking logic that admits past mistakes, acknowledges present challenges and examines the opportunities for the future. Clinton et al can’t acknowledge success in Iraq because they’ve already bet the barn on failure — anything less, any sort of victory, would be seen as a victory for the Republicans. And we can’t have that, now, can we?

As we seek to make sense out of the incredibly complex situation in Iraq, we should beware the inevitably politicized rhetoric from Washington and listen instead to the people on the ground in Baghdad, in Anbar Province and throughout Iraq — they’re the ones who warned us that Iraq was sliding into chaos years before Bush would admit it, and they’re the ones now telling us that something really is different this time.

Iraq is not a Rorschach inkblot — if you hear someone talk about Iraq the same way they spoke about it two years ago (or four), stop listening. That person isn’t an analyst, but an ideologue. Ideologues got us into this war; only pragmatists can end it … and win it.

Ben Birnbaum is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at bbirnbaum@c­or­ne­llsun.com. Infomaniacs Anonymous appears Tuesdays.