Dem desperation for defeat denied surge chances

Cliff May:

“The only thing this surge will accomplish is a surge of more death and destruction.” That was the prediction of blogger and anti-war activist Arianna Huffington back in December of last year -- one month before the Senate unanimously confirmed Gen. David Petraeus as commander in Iraq.

"I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything.” That was the judgment of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in April -- two months before the reinforcements General Petraeus needed to fully implement his new “surge” strategy had arrived in Iraq.

In mid-June, just as troop strength was reaching the level needed to carry out the revised mission, Senator Reid added: “As many had foreseen, the escalation has failed to produce the intended results."

But now those intended results are being seen – as even some critics of the war, to their credit, are acknowledging. “More American troops have brought more peace to more parts of Iraq. I think that’s a fact,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill) told reporters.

“My sense is that the tactical momentum is there with the troops,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) said to PBS’s Charlie Rose.

The debate over the war in Iraq is shifting, though more slowly than is the war in Iraq, thanks to a well-funded and determined anti-war movement and too many in the media for whom good news is no news.

A few days ago, CNN’s Kyra Phillips interviewed Lt. General Raymond Odierno, General Petraeus’ top deputy. She might have asked whether his troops now have both the will and a way to defeat al-Qaeda suicide-bombers and Iranian-backed death squads. Instead, her inquiring mind wanted to know: “Do you think that this job that you've taken on could be career suicide?”

Because of scant media interest, most Americans don’t even realize that the so-called surge is a new and different strategy, implemented by General Petraeus because the approach of his predecessors – not least former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield – failed.

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General Petraeus, the Army’s top counterinsurgency expert, decided it was time for a different approach. He moved troops out of the FOBs and put them into Iraqi cities and villages where they have been providing security for Iraqis – who have shown their appreciation by providing intelligence that spy satellites can’t retrieve.

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Cliff is attributing Gen. Abizaid's small foot print strategy to Rumsfeld. While Rumsfeld may have agreed with that strategy, it is a mistake to say it was not that of Gen. Abizaid who pushed the same small foot print strategy, with more success in Afghanistan. It just was not effective in Iraq because the enemy reacted to it differently there. The enemy chose a strategy to put wedges between the tectonic cultural plates of Iraqi Sunni and Shia in order to create a chaos from which it hoped to come out on top. The small foot print strategy that worked in Afghanistan where we did not want to be perceived as invaders, was misplaced in Iraq where we needed higher force to space ratios in order to give security to both factions.