Is the Iraqi army stepping up to the plate? ISI/AQI leaders dropping like flies.

As the world focuses on the aftermath of post Iraqi election vote counting, re-counting and coalition maneuvering, meandering at a snail's pace, the deadline for US troop withdrawals set by President Obama looms. There is huge political and logistical momentum behind drawing down US troop levels in Iraq. President Obama has staked a good portion of his foreign policy legacy on leaving Iraq and "winning" in Afghanistan and the Pentagon has begun the biggest movement of military kit in history. Despite the massive inertia, the worst nightmare for the US is leaving Iraq prematurely only to see the country descend into anarchy or civil war once we're gone. Obviously a stable, non-sectarian and hopefully secular government is essential to the long term stability of Iraq, however, without the emergence of the American equipped, trained, and organized Iraqi Army as a capable fighting force, there is a virtual guarantee that the future of Iraq, and quite a few historical legacies, will be in shambles.
Thankfully, there are increasingly positive signs of a capable Iraqi security force emerging. This week's STRATFOR focus on the recent flurry of high level ISI/AQI (Islamic State of Iraq/Al Queda-Iraq) assassinations shows an increasingly effective and assertive Iraqi military taking the fight to its enemies. While it is hard to gauge the level of US involvement, signs indicate that the Iraqi military is increasingly acting on its own accord, command and perhaps most encouraging, its own intelligence.
The ability of the Iraqi's to gather, analyze and act on HUMINT (human intelligence) is invaluable. Despite the best efforts of the American armed forces and intelligence community to wean ourselves from an over-reliance  on electronic intelligence gathering and a dearth of qualified analysts and linguists, even in an ideal world, we could never approach the potential of the Iraqis themselves to gather timely and accurate intelligence. The Arab intelligence services, though often vilified for their notoriously brutal tactics, are a formidable group, especially when it comes to infiltrating and monitoring domestic terror networks (although they are not always inclined to act on it). The ability of the emerging Iraqi security apparatus to keep the ISI/AQI leadership scattered, scared, fractured and on the run is far and away the best way to secure the future of a nascent and democratic state. Security and calm will afford the civilian government the breathing room it needs to reconcile, rebuild and assert itself. While it may offend some of our noble ideals to assassinate our enemies, the Israelis must feel vindicated that when faced with irregular adversaries the world is learning that the most effective counter measure is the unyielding pursuit and targeting of terror leadership.