The "surge" was about pacifying Baghdad and giving space and time for political reconciliation. The first part didn’t work, but the second did – kind of.
Political reconciliation has taken place in Washington DC. While the Democrats were slightly against feeding more troops into the Iraq quagmire before the Congress summer recess, they have now turned around and will support Bush’s politics.
Quoting Clinton and Obama, WaPo reports:
The leading Democratic candidates for the White House have fallen into line with the campaign to praise military progress while excoriating Iraqi leaders for their unwillingness to reach political accommodations that could end the sectarian warfare.
To support the Democrat’s brave stand, the White House now adds to the
propaganda surge in form of a $15 million domestic TV and Radio campaign
run by former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
In a race to the bottom the leading Democrats and other Bush dogs try to get Congress’ approval number below those of Bush. Not only by following Bush on Iraq, but also with toothless investigations. Senator Leahy is now even threatening Cheney by offering him further negotiations. What a courageous man. Glenn Greenwald remarks:
Congress is so deeply unpopular not because they are investigating or obstructing too much, but because they are investigating and obstructing far too little.
Yes Glenn, right. But that’s not a bug, but an inherent Democratic feature. Just ask Bush how he sees it.
In light of this, it will not be suprizing to see how the Democrats will lose the 2008 elections: Presidency, House and Senate.
But back to Iraq: The story of military progress in Iraq is of course utter bullshit. The only marginal progress the U.S. has achieved is by arming the Sunni tribes against some more radical elements (Someone in the Pentagon finally read Pat Lang’s book about the Anbar tribes.)
These tribes, now paid by the U.S. military, will of course not stop there. If the U.S. continues to pay them, they will attack the Shia, if the money flow stops, they will attack the Shia and the U.S. troops.
But this dubious temporary success was never part of the "surge" plan. It doesn’t count. The "surge" was about Baghdad’s security and time for a political process. Contrary to the claims of military success, both aims have been missed.
A few days ago McClatchy’s Leila Fadel noted:
U.S. officials say the number of civilian casualties in the Iraqi capital is down 50 percent. But U.S. officials declined to provide specific numbers, and statistics gathered by McClatchy Newspapers don’t support the claim.
The number of car bombings in July actually was 5 percent higher than the number recorded last December, according to the McClatchy statistics, and the number of civilians killed in explosions is about the same.
That was written even before the biggest bombing since the U.S. invasion slaughtered over 500 Yazidis in Tal al Azizziyah. Today 14 U.S. soldiers died in a helicopter crash and more Iraqi policemen got killed too:
In Baiji, a fuel tanker rammed into a newly opened police station, killing at least 20 police officers and civilians, police said. The police department had recently moved into the new office after a truck bombing at their previous headquarters killed 27 people in June.
We can imagine how the military spokesperson will spin this one: "But can’t you see, casualties are down. This time only 20 got killed. That is thanks to the very real military success of the surge. And, by the way, we are pretty much sure that Iran was behind this anyway." Predictably, the Democrats will run with it.
As for the second part of the "surge", Maliki lost the majority in parliament, is politically isolated and now even Bush starts to criticize him. It’s about time for CIA asset Allawi to again take the lead role in the Green Zone puppet theater.
Not that it matters much. Iraq is broken and nobody can fix it. That is at least Nir Rosen’s devastating diagnosis:
Iraq doesn’t exist anymore. Baghdad will never be in the hands of Sunnis again. Baghdad will be controlled by Shia militias. They’ve been cleansing all the Sunnis from Baghdad. So Sunnis are basically being pushed out of Iraq, period. They can go to the Anbar Province, which isn’t a very friendly place.
I think you’ll see that there won’t be any more elections in Iraq. Maliki is the last prime minister Iraq will have for a long time. There is neither the infrastructure for elections anymore, nor the desire to have them, nor the ability of Iraqi groups to cooperate anymore.
So what you’ll see is basically Mogadishu in Iraq: various warlords controlling small neighborhoods. And those who are by major resources, such as oil installations, obviously will be foreign-sponsored warlords who will be able to cut deals with us, the Chinese. But Iraq is destroyed, and I think we’ll see that this will spread throughout the region, and this will destabilize Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, as well.
As Rosen intimately knows the situation on the ground, has been mostly right with his predictions so far and is not paid by the government, this should be considered the best available analysis.
But don’t expect Democrats in Congress to read or act on it.
(Btw: Take the time to read the whole Amy Goodman interview with Rosen. It also covers the refugees situation, Lebanon and Palestine.)