The Surge is Not Working

For all the blather on the right that the Surge is working because violence was down, and the fact that at least one person is going to make note that it's somewhat arbitrary to mark the 4000th death in Iraq as a "grim" milestone (because the overall body count is lower than in other wars, so it can't be "grim," I guess), the question that really needed to be answered was "did the Surge work?"

For the answer to that, I would pass the mike to General Petraeus, who probably wasn't coached by the President or his staff.

"[N]o one (in the U.S. and Iraqi Governments) feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation."

Now, let's consider what the goal of the Surge was. The goal, by the President's own mouth, was to provide breathing space for national reconciliation. In other words, the military could not achieve victory by strength of numbers here. They could only create room for those who could achieve the victory to do so. Because this nation was not (and is not) ready for national reconciliation (or, possibly for democracy), this Surge strategy was doomed to fail from the start. It's not the fault of the military, who did their jobs well. It's the fault of the Iraqi government, who were ill-equipped to handle the responsibility given them, and it is the fault of our President and the over-deferent Congress, who created a power/balance vacuum with this war, not sufficiently thinking through the situation to determine how it would end.

But the Executive Branch (or is it Legislative?) has an answer for that.