Hi NNN:

Have no fear... Barack Obama is now in Iraq and will save us all.

hippolips

'...the Iraqi death toll is actually still worse now than the last time Obama was in Iraq! (See the bombings and shootings listed below for Sunday). The hype around last year's troop escalation obscures a simple fact: that Obama formed his views about the need for the US to leave Iraq at a time when its security situation was very similar to what it is now! Why a return to the bad situation in late 2005 and early 2006 should be greeted by the GOP as the veritable coming of the Messiah is beyond me. You have people like Joe Lieberman saying silly things like if it weren't for the troop escalation, Obama wouldn't be able to visit Iraq. Uh, he visited it before the troop escalation, just fine...' juancole.com

USA Today, former surge skeptics, in today's editorial:

Why can't Obama admit the obvious? The surge worked
Obama was right about war, wrong about surge; McCain vice versa.

quote:

Obama was right about war, wrong about surge; McCain vice versa.

Well, that certainly sounds like an even-handed comment.

On the other hand...

'Allawi blasted the so-called surge, saying that it failed in its primary objective, namely, to end the Iraqi civil war and foster political reconciliation. He said that General Petraeus personally came to his house early in 2007 to assure him that the surge would accomplish its intended objective. Instead, things got worse, said Allawi...

...Allawi said that thirteen members of his party had been assassinated by thugs tied to the army and police. "They were killed by people in uniforms, dressed in police and army uniforms. We had not only thirteen killed, but we had hundreds arrested." Such arrests and killings, Zimbabwe-style, made a sham of the 2005 and 2006 elections. Backed by more than 100 Iraqi parliamentarians, Allawi is trying to ensure the UN and Arab League observers keep a close watch on provincial and national elections in 2009. (Originally scheduled for October, 2008, the provincial elections will likely be postponed because of Kurdish sabotage of the election law over its Kirkuk provisions.)' Maliki the Thug

I guess it's one of those situations where just about every commentator has an axe to grind.

Iraq: Poised to Explode? Criticism of the "surge has worked" idea all seems to focus on the fragile nature of the lull in violence, and the potential for more mayhem. I guess an answer to the original question in this thread would be, "Yes, for the moment..."

Although, of course, the Sunnis of Anbar province have wanted to take over control for years. Is it a handing over of control or an admission of defeat? Having 'allied with' (bought off?) the Sunni resistance for the last year or so, the US is now leaving the field?

'Iraq, like Vietnam, is a conflict where political realities on the ground will trump America's overwhelming military force. Consider "the surge," which Bush and McCain both see as a success. In military terms, they're right - if we define the term to include ethnic cleansing and the US military alliance with Sunni tribal leaders, a ploy that began well before any escalation of troops. In political terms, the surge failed. Iraqi leaders used the increased presence of American troops to avoid making compromises with their rivals, and now al-Maliki's Shia-led government is attacking our Sunni allies. No wonder Gen. David Petraeus, who led the surge, sees any gains as fragile. www.truthout.org

Firstly, '...The level of violence at this moment in Iraq is similar to what prevailed on average during one of the 20th century's worst ethnic civil wars! It is still higher than the casualty rates in Sri Lanka and Kashmir, two of the worst ongoing conflicts in the world...'

But also, 'A crucial element in the fall of violence from the catastrophic levels of summer,2006, was the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad of its Sunnis...

...ideologues such as Fred Kagan must deny or ignore the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad and other areas, and ignore the millions of Iraqis now living abroad or in other provinces, many of them in dire straits, because their Rambo complex forces them to insist that an extra 30,000 US troops, inserted for 16 months, made all the difference...' www.juancole.com

And then, '...Woodward says groundbreaking surveillance techniques – and not the much-trumpeted surge by 30,000 additional troops - were the main reason for the reduction in violence in Iraq over the past 16 months...

...Woodward does credit the influx of troops with contributing to the fall in violence. But he cites as important factors the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's reining-in of his powerful Mahdi army, the so-called Anbar Awakening - in which Sunni fighters allied with US forces to fight against al-Qaida - and covert operations targeting key individuals in extremist groups.' www.guardian.co.uk

Then there's the question of the lack of solid political progress, which was supposed to be the point of the surge in the first place,

O'Reilly was badgering Obama to say simply that the surge has been a success, and some criticised Obama for trying to give an involved answer ("if you ask him the time, he'll tell you how to build a watch") - but it's a complex question. "The surge has succeeded" is simplistic and inaccurate, although politically convenient for Bush & Co.

'But on the ground, some of the strategies employed by General Petreaus are beginning to unravel. The Sunni “Awakening” militias he founded, armed and funded have begun fighting with the Shi’a-dominated Iraqi Army, which is also bankrolled by the United States.

“The Shiite-led government has recently stepped up a campaign to arrest leaders of the Awakening and dismantle parts of the program, whose members receive $300 a month from the U.S. military,” the Washington Post reported Tuesday. “Many fighters have abandoned their posts and fled their homes to avoid detention, stoking fears that some will rejoin the insurgency.” On Wednesday, Iraqi troops raided the offices of the influential Sunni clerical group, the Association of Muslim Scholars. In a statement, the Association "denounced this provocative and unjustifiable attack" and blamed the Iraqi government for any negative consequences that may result.'
news.newamericamedia.org

'We started with the hypothesis that the US military surge in Baghdad should have
led to an improvement in the quality of everyday life as indicated by an increased or
stable nighttime light signature of the city. If we take the US government at its word, the
surge was supposed to create better material conditions in Baghdad and thus contribute
to the political reconciliation widely believed to augur a successful outcome of the US
invasion and occupation of Iraq. Yet, as other Iraqi cities experienced just such an
intensification of their nighttime lights, Baghdad had the opposite experience. We
interpret this change as indicating that violence has decreased in Baghdad not because
of an overall improvement in material conditions or because US troops have imposed
a Pax Americana on the city but because large parts of the city have been emptied
of their existing populations and sometimes replaced with coreligionists, thus reducing
the local stimulus to violence emphasized in the Jones Report (2007). If during the
period of the surge something has worked, therefore, in the sense of decreased violence
during a given period, it may have had little to do with the surge itself.' Baghdad nights: evaluating the US military `surge' using nighttime light signatures (PDF)