Surge strategy belies promise

By Libby

Via Jeb Koogler at TMV, Jeb at Foreign Policy Watch explains why the surge has failed already. No matter what the White House tells you about optimistic signs, Jeb is right. He has the quotes where they sold this plan in the beginning as a strategy that depended on political reconciliation and just as many of us predicted a Friedman ago, it didn't work. Even Defense Secretary Gates admitted that much today. He said that Bush administration might have misjudged the difficulty of achieving reconciliation between Iraq's sectarian factions.

Well they're the only ones who did. Maybe they should stop reading the rosy reports and fantastic predictions from their handmaidens at the neo-con think tanks and start reading some real time news. They might have noticed the occupation is going badly.

The surge gained some military ground but it can't be held without a strong government and it made things worse on the political side. Maliki's government teeters on the brink of dissolution. What will horrible carnage will happen next is anybody's guess but I predict with certainty that Bush and Petraeus will say they need just one more Friedman or two to make it better and the remaining occupation supporters will claim the Democrats hate America and just want us to fail if they don't give it to them.

Neither statement will be true.