Sunday, January 20, 2008
The Surge is working
But not to the end that the various bloodthirsty war enablers would have you believe. Andrew J. Bacevich takes a good look at what has happened in Iraq and his reality does not even come close to Bloody Billy Kristol's, and others of his ilk, fervent wet dreams.
In only one respect has the surge achieved undeniable success: It has ensured that U.S. troops won't be coming home anytime soon. This was one of the main points of the exercise in the first place. As AEI military analyst Thomas Donnelly has acknowledged with admirable candor, "part of the purpose of the surge was to redefine the Washington narrative," thereby deflecting calls for a complete withdrawal of U.S. combat forces. Hawks who had pooh-poohed the risks of invasion now portrayed the risks of withdrawal as too awful to contemplate. But a prerequisite to perpetuating the war -- and leaving it to the next president -- was to get Iraq off the front pages and out of the nightly news. At least in this context, the surge qualifies as a masterstroke.So Our Dear Embattled Leader has tied the US and Iraq together with a Gordian Knot. And another "brilliant" domestic political tactic has insured the continued failure of the foreign military strategy, as if the strategy needed any help in failing.
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