Why McCain Is Wrong And The Surge Is A Failure

John McCain has been doing a lot of crowing lately about the "success of the surge" in Iraq. He and Sarah Palin are pointing to McCain´s backing of the surge as evidence of his good judgment on Iraq. But his backing of the surge strategy and his subsequent claims that the surge is working is more evidence of John McCain´s lack of sound judgment and basic understanding of the issues in Iraq.

The surge is not a working strategy for any measure of long term success in Iraq. The surge put more soldiers on the street in a specific area to reduce the number of attacks in that area prior to the American election. That´s it. It is simply a political tactic designed to manipulate statistics on violence in Iraq and allow war supporters to claim some semblance of progress prior to the election, as if that would erase from the memory of voters the preceding years of failed strategy in Iraq.

Taken to its extreme it is easy to see the inherent problem with the surge. If you increase the number of troops to the point that there is one soldier for every citizen in Iraq, following that citizen around all day with a gun pointed at their head, the number of incidents of sectarian and anti-American violence would plummet to near zero. (Unless you count citizens being held at gunpoint all day as an act of violence) But would that be a success? No, that would be a catastrophic failure. That would not be peace and normality. That would be an enormous waste of expenditure for a temporary dip in a particular statistic at the expense of creating an environment of seething hostility that will erupt as soon as the guns are removed from those citizens´ heads.

The surge is a boot on the back of the neck of that young Iraqi male, who as soon as the boot is removed will come up swinging. John McCain, of all people should know that. Pointing more guns at people will get them to do what you want them to do, but only until the guns are pointed somewhere else. For five and a half years John McCain did exactly what he was told to do because there were guns pointed at him. His ever evolving stories of insignificant acts of rebellion don´t change that immutable fact. But did John McCain come around to agreeing with those who were pointing the guns at him or did he develop a deep rooted hatred that is there to this day? John McCain recently said of his captors "I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live." Does McCain really expect that escalating troop levels in a country screaming for troop withdrawals is going to win hearts and minds? McCain has said he would rather lose an election than lose a war. But his backing of the surge strategy says otherwise. It says he would rather risk the lives of still more American soldiers to manipulate statistics that can be exploited in an election campaign.

The only success related to "the surge" is the ability of pundits and campaign strategists to get the "surge" moniker to stick. It really is a misnomer as a surge is a momentary increase. What has happened in Iraq is an escalation. The troops can´t be drawn down now. So Bush has decided to keep troops at current levels through the remainder of his administration. He coyly announced a "troop reduction" which won´t take effect until he is gone from office. This allows him to claim credit prior to the election for an environment which allows troop reductions without having to actually reduce troops and deal with the consequences himself. Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has argued that it is necessary to keep troop levels fairly constant through next June, an even longer time frame than Bush is publicly embracing. Gen. Petraeus knows what will happen when his boot is lifted.

John McCain was wrong about Iraq when he told CNN in September 2002 "I believe that the success will be fairly easy," He told MSNBC the in January 2003 "We will win this conflict. We will win it easily." He was wrong when he took his famous stroll through a Baghdad market surrounded by security forces and attack helicopters to show how "safe" it was. He is playing politics with the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi citizens and attempting to lay claim to superior judgement on Iraq. But his judgement on Iraq has been wrong all along and it is wrong now. His support of the surge strategy and his claims of success in Iraq are demonstrative of this fact.