The Fort Lewis commander serving as the American military’s second-in-command in Iraq said this week that the violence in Iraq has taken a decidedly political tone ahead of January’s parliamentary elections, and that operations against insurgent groups have effectively left them unable to counter security gains.

“There is no single insurgent group that can reverse what’s been done in terms of security,” Lt. Gen. Charles Jacoby said. “They’ll try to make their mark, their impact politically.”

Fort Lewis’ I Corps is about halfway through its deployment as Multi-National Corps-Iraq, which is running daily American military operations throughout the country. Jacoby, who has commanded I Corps and Fort Lewis since 2007, is home on two weeks of leave that each deployed soldier receives.

In an interview in his office on post, he said the nature of the fighting in Iraq has meant the American military has redefined how it views progress in the country.

“Numbers of attacks are not quite as relevant as targets of attacks,” he said. “What we’re really seeing right now is that almost everything in Iraq now – from insurgent activity to economic activity to political activity to the things we see impacting from outside of Iraq – are all shaped by the upcoming election. It is truly an election-year mentality. The remaining insurgents are trying to make political statements as much as they are military progress.”

Multi-National Force-Iraq is the overarching unit under which all American forces fall and runs the military’s strategic operations. MNC-I is a step lower; it’s in charge of running daily operations and supporting subordinate units.

The 1,000 soldiers of I Corps took the reins of MNC-I in April; it’s the first time since the Korean War that I Corps has deployed during wartime.

The war in Iraq has a Fort Lewis flavor to it, with about 13,000 of the post’s troops in the Middle East. The 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division and 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division are deployed to Iraq, as is 17th Fires Brigade, the 201st Battlefield Surveillance Brigade and a handful of smaller units.

Jacoby said he can measure the corps’ success halfway through its deployment in two ways: the ongoing partnership with the Iraqi armed forces and by overseeing the pullout of American troops from cities and towns by June 30, a move that was part of the security agreement between Washington and Baghdad.

“Tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers left Iraqi cities, turned over responsibility of security to Iraqi security forces and did it in a very professional, very effective way that maintained and sustained security,” he said. “We did it in a way that caught the enemy off guard, protected the force and maintained security for the population.”

About 120,000 American troops remain in Iraq, and attacks across the country have dropped to their lowest levels since the invasion. Jacoby’s chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Peter Bayer, said in an interview earlier this month that Iraq is seeing an average of 16-25 attacks per day over the past six months.

During the height of the violence, insurgents would launch hundreds of attacks daily, Bayer said. This year has seen 128 American military fatalities, the lowest of any year since the invasion.

Insurgents most commonly attack Iraqi civilians and the Iraqi security forces, Jacoby said.

“I’m encouraged by the precipitous drop in U.S. casualties, but I’m still troubled by the number civilian casualties generated by high-profile attacks,” he said. “We see the terrorists, the extremists go after marketplaces when they can. They go after large gatherings – people coming out of mosques. We see fewer high-profile attacks than in the past, but we see them creating large number of casualties.”

But American troops still conduct combat operations throughout Iraq – specifically outside of Mosul, along the Syrian and Iranian borders and in areas around Baghdad.

“Our work’s not done in Iraq,” Jacoby said.