Did the surge help the situation in Iraq?

On the one hand you have Obama being unwilling to admit that the surge in Iraq helped to reduce the violence there. On the other hand you have McCain getting into trouble on the timing of the surge with other changes in strategy. McCain was forced to provide a completely nonsensical explain for his position about the timing of the surge in relation to other political changes in Iraq. In both cases I think that the politicians would be better off just saying that they had made mistakes and move on, though I think McCain came off much worse.