Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell takes a look back at the Iraq debate over the last year:

A year ago today, Democrats in Washington sent a letter to the President aimed at turning voter discontent about the war into a popular rejection of the new military strategy he was about to announce. They wrote: “Surging forces is a strategy that you have already tried and that has already failed. Like many current and former military leaders, we believe that trying again would be a serious mistake...We are well past the point of more troops for Iraq.”

They predicted failure and argued against what even senior Democrats now concede has been a successful change in strategy.

Since the full implementation of the Petraeus Plan this summer, we have seen dramatic improvements in Iraq: Al Qaeda in Iraq has been scattered, Sunni tribes have turned decisively against it; Iraqi refugees are returning home; bottom-up reconciliation has been taking place nationwide; and Baghdad, with improving security, is rising again.

And U.S. troops are returning home.

The early criticism of the Petraeus Plan has faded. Looking back, it’s frightening to think what would have happened had those in opposition prevailed and astonishing to consider what our forces have achieved over the past year.

What’s particularly amazing is that our troops and military leaders have accomplished all of that despite being in the middle of a political boxing match and under the cynical scrutiny of a hostile media.