Spin! Spin! Spin!

The Facts

1. At the beginning of the year President Bush proposed a troop surge of approximately 30,000 troops. His stated purpose was to provide additional security on the ground to give the Iraqi government the breathing room it needed to implement some hard diplomatic solutions to Iraq's problems.
   
   
2. At Congress's behest and with Mr. Bush's full and public support, 18 benchmarks were established that would provide a concrete and measurable gauge by which progress toward the stated goals could be measured.
   
   
3. Iraqi President Nuri al-Maliki went on television in a widely viewed address to both his nation and the people of the United States and assured us that not only would they fully meet all of the benchmarks, but they would exceed them.
   

The above facts are indisputable. They happened and are easy verified by going back and reading the stories in the press during that time. So now we have the base established. The bottom line is, that according to Congress, Mr. Bush, and Mr. al-Maliki, the only measure of success is whether or not the benchmarks are met. That is all the surge was intended to accomplish.

What Happened?

The "surge" went into Iraq. It was shortly after the surge began that we learned that rather than working on the political reconciliation and other issues as they had promised, the Iraqi government was planning a two-month long holiday at the end of the "surge." This left no appreciable time from when the last of the U.S. troops hit the ground and they were expected to produce the results they promised. While Washington managed to bully them down to only one month of sipping tea and popping bon bons by the pool while our soldiers died, they still managed to accomplish virtually nothing.

Over the past week two reports have surfaced. One states that while the Iraqi army is making some limited progress, it will be from between 12-18 months before they can even begin to assume any sort of leading roll in Iraq's defense. In an interview with those who wrote the report (on Meet The Press) they estimate it will be 3-6 years before this transition can be expected to be completed. The same report concluded that the National Police, run by the Department of the Interior, is so corrupt and so sectarian that it should just be disbanded and reorganized.

The Iraqi government has fulfilled 3 of the 18 benchmarks and has made no progress whatever on the really essential ones. Large blocks of the government and the parliament has resigned or withdrawn because of this lack of will. Ethnic cleansing on the part of the Shiite militias in Baghdad goes on unchecked and nearly 2 million have fled the country. More than that have fled the city as one Sunni neighborhood after another are given the choice of either leaving or being murdered.

Since the beginning of Mr. Bush's "war on terror" (as if you can make a war on either an emotion or a tactic) terrorist incidents worldwide have increased 500%.

Most military leaders point to small and limited improvements on the ground and claim that the "surge" is working. The surge is working only if the Iraqi government has achieved its reconciliation goals and has completed the benchmarks. They have done neither.

The Spin

Mr. Bush, et. al have been been in a frenzy of spinning for the past two weeks. Mr. Bush now claims that any sign, no matter how small, of military progress on the ground is "proof" that the surge is working. Now I grant you if small or measurable success on the ground were the goal Mr. Bush, Congress, and Mr. al-Maliki had named as the indicator of success, then this would be true. Unfortunately however, it is not what they all said would measure success. Only political success would do that and there has been no political movement, much less success.

Most experts on the region agree that without a political solution there is absolutely no way for the U.S. to ever stabilize Iraq. Even now, were all of the foreign fighters to leave today, the levels of violence on the ground would barely abate because they are no longer the problem. Iraq is embroiled in a sectarian civil war. here is no solution to that other than a political one onto which all of the parties sign.

General Petraeus is expected to testify before congress tomorrow, and the ambassador to Iraq on Wednesday. They are expected to spout the party line that the surge is "succeeding" while acknowledging that only a few minor benchmarks have been reached and that no diplomatic moves have been made toward political reconciliation. He is expected to recommend (ala Mr. Bush's orders) that we leave the troops there to die for another six months or so to give the Iraqi government time to work on political solutions. I am positive he will not explain how this is expected to happen and why now when they have utterly failed to regard it as sufficiently important to even stay in session and work.

Mr. Bush and his crew of merry vagabonds continue to insist that the majority of the fighting on the ground right now in Iraq is the result of actions of al-Qaeda members in the country. Every civilian and military expert who has been there over the past six months agree almost to the man that this is not true. The violence now is between various Muslim sects and the divisions within those sects. In Baghdad, for instance, The Shittes are clearing out the Sunnis at a record pace so it's not surprising that when you couple fewer people with more military boots on the ground, the level of violence has gone down in some places there. Overall, however, the death toll of civilians last month exceeded the month before by quite a bit.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line that will be concluded by most reasonable people other than the 29%ers who believe Mr. Bush walks his dog on the lake every morning are as follows:

1. Given the stated purpose of the surge, it has failed. While there are a few small military successes to point to, military success was not why the surge was implemented.
   
   
2. The al-Maliki government either outright lied or misrepresented what progress they could reasonably be expected to achieve in the six months they were given, and that even then they didn't even try to meet the goals.
   
   
3. General Petraeus will concentrate on presenting congress with the rosiest possible picture of the conditions on the ground in Iraq, will lobby for more time, and will studiously ignore the real reason for the surge in the first place. He will pretend that military success on the ground is the reason for the surge.
   
   
4. Congress will conclude that the surge is a failure, but will almost certainly cave in and give Mr. Bush a blank check. All the time making (or trying to make) political hay over Mr. Bush's war, which a few of them honestly wish to continue and perhaps even get worse before the upcoming elections so as to generate a very real anti-Republican backlash.
   
   
   
5. Mr. al-Maliki will go on television sometime toward the end of the week, probably after Mr. Bush gives his blowing sunshine address to the nation either Thursday or Friday, and will appear openly defiant and repeat his offer for us to leave right now and his assertion that they can do just fine thank you without us. I urge the President and congress to take him up on it.

Conclusion

It might sound cynical to some, but I don't feel this dog and pony show will accomplish anything or will change any minds. Mr. Bush will get his blank check and our troops will continue to die. The government of Iraq will fall sometime within the next four months leaving the country in even more chaos than it is currently. The civil war will continue unabated until the country splits into three separate and warring provinces. Finally, we will be there, and we intend to be there, for at least the next five to seven years and probably more. Remember, you heard it here first.