Happy Belated Surgeiversary

If Islamo-Fascism is a word then I think surgeiversary deserves its place in the political lexicon. It means a kind of anniversary that makes you unsure about what exactly you are celebrating. Last Thursday marked a year since the announcement by W. of the surge strategy in Iraq. While the increased troop levels have led to security gains, the stated goal of the surge has largely not been achieved. Yes, force protection is nice but the troop increase was supposed to buy the Iraqis some breathing room to make nice and get their political game together. As of yet there has been some movement but the political landscape has not been radically altered like we were told it would once the additional troops arrived. Below that shiny exterior portrayed in nightly news clips of pretty snow flakes in Baghdad is an undisclosed reality that is unchanged since the surge. At this point the whole damn thing has been so obscured that the average person can't figure out what the real story is. It makes sense that Iraq is fading from the minds of Presidential primary voters and being replaced with pocketbook issues.

There are two points of view I present on the surge and its impact on the Iraq conundrum. One is the Op-ed written by the at dynamic bi-partisan duo McCain and Lieberman that appeared in the January 10^th Wall Street Journal. Their piece titled “The Surge Worked” (not working but worked) is a predictable recounting of the Petraeus good and Al Qaeda bad story of how the surge has pulled off a miracle in Iraq. It's worth reading but their argument fails to move much past the military side of the surge equation. The other exhibit is the Tom Rick's (author of Fiasco) appearance on Countdown with Keith Olberman from last week. I find Ricks' analysis of all things Iraq to be the most direct way to get a dependable and objective answer. Ricks' statement ”Judged on terms in which the President presented it the surge has not worked...” gets to the heart of my surgeiversary pondering. Was the trillion dollars really worth it?