Anbar and the Surge

One major claim of those advocating the continuation of the surge and a large American footprint in Iraq is the success in Anbar. They say that the Surge led to the Sunni insurgents in Anbar to side with the coalition (read: U.S.) against Al Qaeda in Iraq. Here is the slide Petraeus used as proof:

But look! Attacks in Anbar began to decrease in November 2006, when it became clear the Dems were going to be in power and the war was reaching an end game. Could it be that the Sunni insurgents realized that the enemy when we left was going to be the Shiites AND al Qaeda and they needed, quickly, to use us to rid themselves of at least one of them. That would bolster the argument that a deadline might actually help pressure Iraqis to get off their asses and do something.

NOTE - I've changed the link to be more reliable.