I've bitten my tongue in the last few days, partly because of bronchial issues, partly because the news is so target-rich, and partly because the events in Iraq seemed almost comically to make the point I have been making for years now. The surge only worked as a face-saving device to get out of Iraq. It never worked as it was designed to, to bring Iraq's sects and factions together. It failed. As Iraq begins to unravel, Patrick Porter re-evaulates the surge:
Advocates of enlightened counterinsurgency and muscular state-building argued that Iraq vindicated their position. They argued that the combination of more troops and more restraint played a major role in depressing the levels of violence and giving Iraq a breathing space to recover from the communal bloodletting it suffered in the post-invasion years. But if Iraq descends again into the traumatic violence of 2005-6, we must acknowledge that this approach had its limits. It bought time and got the issue off the front pages – no small thing for a superpower that has seen presidencies destroyed in the past by protracted small wars – but a new civil war of sorts would suggest that the surge did not achieve its most profound objective.
You think?
(Hat tip: Joyner)
The Dish 