Troop surge
General David Petraeus, commander of the Multinational force in Iraq, has stated that his recommendations on troop strength are not dependent on the Iraqi government's ability to meet the benchmarks.
On December 2, 2007, the Sunni Arab Iraqi Accord Front called for the end to their boycott of the Iraq Parliament. On January 20, 2008, Iraq's parliament passed a law to let members of the Ba'ath party return to public life, a major US congressional benchmark for the success of Iraqi government. That month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated that Iraq's economy would expand significantly from the previous year's lows. Mohsin Khan, the IMF's director for the Middle East, said Iraqi oil production was forecast to climb by 200,000 barrels per day (32,000 m3/d) to 2.2 million barrels per day (350,000 m3/d) in 2008. Also reported by the IMF was that Iraq's gross domestic product growth is expected to jump significantly up to over 7 percent, in 2008 and 2009, from just 1.3 percent in 2007
On December 22, 2007, Michael E. O'Hanlon and Jason H. Campbell of the Brookings Institution called Iraq's economy and political system to be "only marginally better than a year ago". The envoy to Iraq reported on the dialogue between the Sunni and Shia communities and praised the government's work in late 2007.  The envoy, Staffan de Mistura, said he would present a positive picture of progress in Iraq in a report to the UN Security Council despite earlier serious misgivings.  He said, "At the beginning of [2007]... we were genuinely concerned by the lack of progress on national dialogue, today that has substantially changed. It has changed our mind from being worried or from being pessimistic."  The UN report would, he said, "compliment" Iraq's government on its work at fostering reconciliation.
In January 2008, Council of Foreign Relations fellow Michael E. O'Hanlon stated that "Overall, Iraq's political system probably merits a grade of roughly C for its performance over the last 12 months." He also stated that "the pace of progress is finally picking up."
On February 13, 2008, the Iraqi parliament passed three pieces of legislation that were considered contentious.  The three measures were an amnesty law, a law that defines the scope of provincial powers, and the budget for 2008. The amnesty law was one of the benchmarks set by Bush.  The provincial powers law includes a provision for provincial elections, another key benchmark.  And the budget should pave the way for the creation of up to 700,000 new jobs for Iraqis.
USA Today stated on February 17, 2008, that US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker "may be hard-pressed to argue that Iraqis have met political benchmarks Congress sought" and contrasted the political progress with the recent military progress.

Interpretation of results: Whether the surge led to the improvement in Iraqi security, or other factors caused it, is disputed by some. Council of Foreign Relations fellow Noah Feldman has remarked that:

These questions can be stated with some precision. They begin with the issue of how to interpret the comparative reduction in violence since the surge of United States troops began nearly a year ago. Does the decrease show that more troops on the ground were necessary to impose effective control over territory and persuade insurgents to back down? Or is the reduced violence a sign instead that the prospect of imminent United States withdrawal has made Iraqis more hesitant to foment a civil war from which the United States will not save them? Whatever the answer, the practical consequences are huge: either we keep troop levels relatively stable, drawing down slowly while we consolidate increasing stability, or we accelerate withdrawal to underscore our seriousness about leaving.

Support: Both critics of the surge and independent news services have stated that the conventional wisdom in the United States media is that the surge 'worked'. Many Democratic political leaders have acknowledged the same.
In June 2008, correspondents on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer stated that "few would argue about the success of the so-called surge in Iraq". Time has stated that "the surge is a fragile and limited success, an operation that has helped stabilize the capital and its surroundings." The New York Times has stated that "The surge, clearly, has worked, at least for now. ... The result, now visible in the streets, is a calm unlike any the country has seen since the American invasion".
Peter Mansoor, General Petraeus's executive officer and author of the Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq, stated in an August 2008 The Washington Post op-ed that "The Iraq war is not over, but our war effort is on a firmer foundation... The surge has created the space and time for the competition for power and resources in Iraq to play out in the political realm, with words instead of bombs." Blogger and independent reporter Michael Yon, who has been embedded with the troops in Iraq for years, had suggested the surge strategy before it was formalized. In his book, Moment of Truth in Iraq, Yon argued that Petraeus had turned defeat into victory in Iraq and that the surge had succeeded. In July 2008, Yon stated in a New York Daily News editorial that "'The war in Iraq is over ... the Iraqi people won."
Historian Larry Schweikart argued in his book America's Victories: Why the U.S. Wins Wars, that the surge's success, in part, came from the incredible casualties the US military inflicted on al-Qaeda in Iraq and on the "insurgents" from 2003 to 2006---some 40,000 killed, about 200,000 wounded, 20,000 captured, and nearly 10,000 deserted. He has stated that those levels of attrition on an enemy the estimated size of al-Qaeda were substantial and deeply damaging, not only to the terrorists' efforts in Iraq, but had the effect of depleting them worldwide.  Moreover, Schweikart argued, virtually all estimates of enemy casualties were severely under-counted (as are all numbers of guerilla casualties) given the inability to identify bodies which were completely annihilated by explosives or to count carcasses dragged away, as well as how many would die later after attempted medical treatment by other Al Queda sympathizers.
On September 11, 2014, Senator John McCain argued on CNN's At This Hour that the surge was a victory, that it had fulfilled the goal of providing substantial security and stability to the Iraqi government, and that the withdrawal of troops after the surge had resulted in growing terrorist operations and the emergence of ISIS in Iraq. McCain said, "We had it won, thanks to the surge. It was won. The victory was there. All we needed was a force behind to provide support, not to engage in combat, but to supply support, logistics, intelligence. And, by the way, the Korean War we left troops behind; Bosnia, we left troops behind, not to fight, but be for a stabilizing force."

Opposition: Journalist Patrick Cockburn has stated that the reduction in violence was a direct result of ethnic cleansing by the Shia-led Iraqi government and Shia militias against Sunnis. He has stated that "the battle for Baghdad in 2006-07 was won by the Shia, who now control three-quarters of the capital. These demographic changes appear permanent; Sunnis who try to get their houses back face assassination." UCLA professor of geography John Agnew released a study in mid-September 2008 stating that violence has declined in Baghdad "because of intercommunal violence that reached a climax as the surge was beginning," said that "By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left."
Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward has interviewed US government sources according to whom the US "surge" was not the primary reason for the drop in violence in 2007–2008. Instead, according to his view, the reduction of violence was due to new covert techniques by US military and intelligence officials to find, target and kill insurgents.
Some, such as then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, have credited the Iranian government for all or part of the reduction in violence. Pelosi stated in May 2008 that "some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians." Cockburn has also stated that the Iranians played the major role.
Other commentators have pointed to the Sunni Awakening (which started in 2005) as the most important reason for the decline in Iraqi violence. David Kilcullen, General Petraeus's counterinsurgency and troop surge adviser, believes that "the tribal revolt was arguably the most significant change in the Iraqi operating environment in several years."
One article mentions that "Currently, the dominant U.S presence in Iraq allows the rest of the world to avoid responsibility for stability in and around Iraq even as everyone realizes the stakes involved".