Surge strategy producing new surge of violence

Sometimes I have to check the date to be sure I'm not caught in a time warp and reading the same news over and over again, because it surely doesn't seem to change much in Iraq. After the initial period of expected calm in Baghdad when the new US troops rolled in, sectarian violence is popping up more forcefully than ever all over Iraq. In the last two days I've read about at least a half dozen smaller incidents including an attack on the Green Zone that killed at least one soldier and several Iraqis. Then of course there was the high profile truck bombings in Tal Afar a couple of days which unsurprisingly resulted in this scenario.

Shiite militants and police enraged by massive truck bombings in the northwestern town of Tal Afar went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents there Wednesday, killing as many as 60 people, officials said.

...The shooting continued for more than two hours, the officials said.

Army troops later moved into the Sunni areas to stop the violence and a curfew was slapped on the entire town, according to Wathiq al-Hamdani, the provincial police chief and his head of operations, Brig. Abdul-Karim al-Jibouri.

"The situation is under control now," said al-Hamdani. "The local Tal Afar police have been confined to their bases and policemen from Mosul are moving there to replace them."

If memory serves, the local police are supposed to be the key to "winning" in Iraq. Somehow I find it difficult to see how having to confine them to their bases in order to keep them from killing their fellow countrymen as a win. I also remind you that Tal Afar was touted as a sign of success by Bush back in September 05. And remember our "victory" in Fallujah? Two suicide car bombers attacked the government center there this week.

Isn't this exactly what happened when we had the unofficial surge last summer? Call me a defeatist if you like, but this isn't forward progress in my book. It's more like running on a treadmill. We may be moving fast, but we're not really getting anywhere.