Or so John McCain and his legions would have you believe.
In a nutshell, the sycophants and the other McCain true believers would have you believe that just because things might actually be looking up in Iraq, that it somehow excuses every one of the blunders that were made getting to where we are today.
They also want you to believe that Obama is just one generation short of the anti-Christ because he has pointed out that successful surge or not, it was never in our long term interests to invade and /or remain in Iraq.
John McCain wants you to believe that he was the lone maverick-baying in the wilderness-against the Bush adminstration and was in that role since 2003. Sounds good, and makes a great campaign line, “Lose a campaign, not a war.”
Too bad its not true. John McCain was perfoming politico fellatio on the President for what appears by my count, at least three years. Don’t believe me? See for yourself:
That’s an important point McCain does not want you to remember:
What McCain omits is that if he himself had been right all the times before 2007 that he said things were going fine, no surge would have been needed. He’s like a weatherman who forecasts clear skies every day and, when the rain finally lets up after a week, expects a standing ovation for his accuracy.
The troop escalation has not been the complete failure Obama suggested it would be, but it has fallen far short of the triumph claimed by Republicans. The level of violence, though down from the very worst months of the war, remains at levels comparable with 2005, which were considered awful at the time.
Iraqi civilians died at a higher rate in the first four months of this year than in the same period of 2005. The number of attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces is about the same. Here is McCain’s definition of success: returning to a pace of bloodshed that was once regarded as intolerable.
Even the progress made in the last 18 months is only partly attributable to the additional American forces. Equally important was the decision of Sunni militias to turn against Al Qaeda in Iraq.
What is true is that McCain recognized a lot earlier than his President, that there was no hope of anything good happening in Iraq, as long as Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense. He was out in front of his party by pointing out in mid 2005, that Rumsfeld was very guilty of the cardinal sin of a SECDEF-not doing what it takes to resource the armed forces to get the conflict over with as quickly as possible. It took another 18 months for Rumsfeld to be thrown under the bus as he richly deserved to be.
So has the surge worked and victory is around the corner?
I believe the answer is yes and no. No amount of troops would have made a difference without a different focus by the military ( which has been pointed out by GI Korea). Having extra troops did make a difference and I submit to you that Obama will live to regret the fact that they has so beholden to the lunatic fringe of the Democratic party not to acknowledge that fact-in fact embrace it and use it as proof that he is correct-American troops can be withdrawn over a defined period of time and the world will not end.
McCain however does the military a real disservice by also not acknowledging that the success of the surge is not just due to the efforts of the teflon general-Saint Petreaus. There was a lot of solid military effort that went on long before he returned to the Iraqi scene. I think one of the great travesties of when the history of the Iraq war is written will be that the hard work and sacrifice by the US military in the almost 4 years leading up to the surge, will get short shrift because the story will get intermixed with the personal narrative of how Petreaus single handly saved Iraq. It was actually a combination of factors-not the least of which was a de-facto apartheid imposed by events , on the city of Baghdad:
The sectarian cleansing of Baghdad has been — albeit tragic — one of the key elements to the drop in sectarian violence in the capital. […] It’s a very simple concept: Baghdad has been divided; segregated into Sunni and Shia enclaves. The days of mixed neighborhoods are gone. […] If anyone is telling you that the cleansing of Baghdad has not contributed to the fall in violence, then they either simply do not understand Baghdad or they are lying to you.’
Of course, Gen. Petraeus took courageous and effective steps to try to stop bombings in markets and so forth. But I am skeptical that most of these techniques had macro effects. Big population movements because of militia ethnic cleansing are more likely to account for big changes in social statistics.
The way in which the escalation troops did help establish Awakening Councils is that when they got wise to the Shiite ethnic cleansing program, the US began supporting these Sunni militias, thus forestalling further expulsions.
The Shiitization of Baghdad was thus a significant cause of falling casualty rates. But it is another war waiting to happen, when the Sunnis come back to find Shiite militiamen in their living rooms……..
The troop escalation in and of itself was probably not that consequential. That the troops were used in new ways by Gen. Petraeus was more important. But their main effect was ironic. They calmed Baghdad down by accidentally turning it into a Shiite city, as Shiite as Isfahan or Tehran, and thus a terrain on which the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement could not hope to fight effectively.
Both candidates are searching for the road to the exits, it will depend on who wins to determine whose version of “Peace with honor” is executed.
That’s the dirty little secret John McCain dances around. He’ll withdraw just as assuredly as Obama will.
Only his timetable will not be a “timtable”. And in what I consider the most positive development-if it lasts-it will be against the stated desire of the elected Iraqi government. How he’s going to dance around that little fact-is going to be interesting indeed.