Surging towards Oblivion?

You might have noticed that there are numerous reports recently that the surge is having some success. See, e.g., here, and here. But "success" to what end? As Carl Levin said yesterday, "The purpose of the surge, by its own terms, was to have the — give the opportunity to the Iraqi leaders to reach some political settlements. They have failed to do that. They have totally and utterly failed." At http://www.weaselzippers.net/blog/2007/08/carl-levin-the-.html, W Zip takes umbrage at Senator Levin's comment. But I have some questions? If the surge was not meant to set the conditions for a political settlement, what was its purpose? Was it to get Al-Qaeda of Iraq out of Anbar and arm the Sunni militias there? Was it to secure Baghdad for the sake of securing Baghdad?



In March of this year, General Petraeus himself said that there was no military solution to the problem of the Iraqi insurgency. Therefore, the military progress we are all hearing of now is, by the commanding General's own terms, not a solution. So I must assume from all this optimism we are hearing, that there is significant political progress. What? There isn't any?



Look, we have seen that after four and a half years of foreign control in Basra, the Iraqis will start killing eachother as soon as we leave. And that is without a large Sunni population. What makes anyone think that after a year, two years, three years of foreign control over Baghdad, the same won't happen when we leave, whenever we leave. Proponents of remaining in Iraq under the current conditions must have a reason to believe that the chaos they are so worried about if the US leaves now will not happen if we leave some unknown time in the future. Is there any evidence of this? I think Basra suggests exactly the opposite.