As Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, prepares to address Congress on Tuesday, John McCain is making the case that the troop surge Petraeus instituted last year is showing signs of measurable progress.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said Monday that the decision last year to add 30,000 U.S. troops to the 130,000 already on the ground has brought violence down enough so that the Iraqi government can achieve political milestones and its people can begin to reconcile.

“From June 2007 through my most recent trip last month, sectarian and ethnic violence in Iraq has been reduced by 90 percent. Civilian deaths and deaths of coalition forces fell by 70 percent. The dramatic reduction in violence has opened the way for a return to something approaching normal political and economic life for the average Iraqi,” McCain said in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City, Mo.

“We are no longer staring into the abyss of defeat, and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success,” he said.

McCain said both Sunnis and Shiites are returning to their homes and concerned local citizens groups like “Sons of Iraq” are joining the fight against Al Qaeda operatives. He said success can be measured by Iraq’s efforts to establish “a generally peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state that poses no threat to its neighbors and contributes to the defeat of terrorists.”

McCain’s speech comes just a week and a half after his last congressional fact-finding mission to the region, where he met with Petraeus, head of Multi-National Forces in Iraq, and Amb. Ryan Crocker, who is also scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

McCain is closely tied to the 5-year-old American presence in Iraq, but he was intensely critical of the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war prior to Petraeus’ arrival and the execution of the surge.

Acknowledging the more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq, McCain said success will also be measured by American troops returning home “with the honor of having secured their country’s interests at great personal cost, and helping another people achieve peace and self-determination.”

McCain added that an honest appraisal of what is happening would force Democrats to change their minds about what he calls a precipitous withdrawal, which he says would result in chaos in the region and would leave the Iraqis abandoned to the Iranians. Iran’s influence was noted again last week when the Shiite militia led by Moqtada al-Sadr agreed to a cease-fire with Iraqi security forces only after a high-level meeting between Iraqi and Iranian leaders in Iran.

McCain attacked his Democratic opponents, saying that while they criticize the effort to bring stability, at the same time they recognize it would be calamitous to withdraw wholesale.

“Some would withdraw regardless of the consequences. Others say that we can withdraw now and then return if trouble starts again. What they are really proposing, if they mean what they say, is a policy of withdraw and re-invade,” McCain said, without naming his opponents. “To promise a withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, regardless of the calamitous consequences to the Iraqi people, our most vital interests, and the future of the Middle East, is the height of irresponsibility. It is a failure of leadership.”

McCain is hoping to set the tenor of the presidential race and could win a big political moment by broadly framing the election during Petraeus’ visit.

But McCain is facing an upward battle. Polls indicate that only about half of Americans support staying in Iraq, and a majority think it was wrong to enter the country in the first place. McCain’s opponents are doing all they can to tie the Arizona senator to President Bush’s unpopularity. A FOX News poll last month put the president’s approval rating at 30 percent.

“Responsible leadership means being honest about your plans for the future, not hiding behind empty rhetoric and shallow attacks. While the voters want change, John McCain is promising more of the same failed Bush policies,” said Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.

“John McCain was wrong about the war from the beginning,” Barack Obama said. “He’s wrong to call for more resources in Iraq while the American people are struggling, and he’s wrong to support a 100-year occupation of a country that needs to take responsibility for its own future.”

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