The champagne corks are not yet popping, nor are high fives being exchanged in the White House, but already it is clear that President Clinton has once again confounded his critics.
European leaders like the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, and the French President, Jacques Chirac, will also be given due credit for the ending of the conflict in Kosovo, but the NATO bombing campaign which has brought President Slobodan Milosevic to accept defeat was overwhelmingly American.
While Mr Blair has won praise for his aggressive posture and for going around "stiffening spines" in NATO, it has been largely US diplomacy handled by President Clinton and his Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, which kept the 19 allies together with daily phone calls, meetings at the White House and constant visits to European capitals.
The 50th anniversary summit of NATO in Washington six weeks ago was a crucial phase in the campaign and an anxious time for President Clinton.
After a month of NATO air strikes, there was no sign of weakening from Mr Milosevic but every sign of cracks in NATO as Italian and Greek ministers openly voiced doubts about the bombing, Britain was pushing for a ground invasion and the German government was threatened with the desertion of the Green coalition partner.
American diplomacy pulled out all the stops and a strengthened alliance dispersed after three days of the treatment from Mr Clinton and Ms Albright, Secretary of Defence, William Cohen, and National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger.
Even the destruction of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by US bombs two weeks later did not shatter the unity of the alliance, although the strains must have been great behind the scenes.
But for the President at home there was no such unified support. The Republican-dominated Congress tied itself up in contradictory resolutions, but it was a real blow when a motion in the House to support the bombing was lost as crucial Democrat votes went missing.
From the Pentagon came a series of leaks that the senior brass had serious doubts about whether an air campaign without ground troops could force Mr Milosevic to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo.
There was ceaseless criticism in the media of the President for declaring at the start of the bombing that he had "no intention" of sending ground troops to fight in Kosovo.
There were humiliating moments as the British media reported that high-level emissaries were on their way from London to Washington to "stiffen the spine" of a President who was seen as still weakened from the Monica Lewinsky affair and the impeachment ordeal.
The Clinton poll ratings were slipping to a level not seen for almost two years as American public opinion expressed increasing doubts about the bombing campaign as civilian casualties mounted.
The President appeared caught in a dilemma. He was being criticised for getting the US into a European conflict which the Europeans were reluctant to handle themselves. But he was also being criticised for waging a bombing war of "immaculate coercion" to ensure that no American lives would be lost.
If Tony Blair was willing to risk British lives, was it not time for the draft-dodging President to act like a commander-in-chief and put American lives on the line as well, the armchair generals asked.
There were signs the criticism was getting home. The President began to claim that he had never ruled out the use of a ground troops invasion. More reserves were called up, more aircraft sent to Europe.
The prospect of getting into a bloody ground war by the autumn and keeping up to a million refugees alive through a Balkans winter was beginning to loom as a disastrous scenario for the White House and for Vice-President Al Gore's faltering election campaign for 2000.
Now all seems changed, although caution about the trustworthiness of Mr Milosevic is the watchword.
Now the critics are beginning to admit that the President made the right call after all.
Not a single American life has been lost in combat, and the Kosovars will get home. The air campaign was more effective than the critics allowed.
While Senator Jesse Helms and other Republicans including the presidential hopeful, Elizabeth Dole, denounce the peace terms as a sell-out which leaves an indicted war criminal in power, the President will have to be given credit for bringing American might to the defence of helpless Kosovars being driven from territory in which the US has no strategic interest.
Mr Clinton was often scoffed at for preaching the "moral imperative" war and for likening Mr Milosevic to Hitler who went on to kill millions because the Western powers stood up to him too late.
There will be more than him to take the credit if the Milosevic capitulation proves genuine. Mr Blair, Mr Schroder and Mr Chirac will all be able to point to an honourable role.
But if it had gone wrong and the body bags had started coming back, Mr Clinton knows who would have got the blame.