Is The Surge surging?

Is "The Surge" working? John McCain thinks that it is:

I just returned from my fifth visit to Iraq since 2003 -- and my first since Gen. David Petraeus's new strategy has started taking effect. For the first time, our delegation was able to drive, not use helicopters, from the airport to downtown Baghdad. For the first time, we met with Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province who are working with American and Iraqi forces to combat al-Qaeda. For the first time, we visited Iraqi and American forces deployed in a joint security station in Baghdad -- an integral part of the new strategy. We held a news conference to discuss what we saw: positive signs, underreported in the United States, that are reason for cautious optimism.

And he is echoing an argument made by Robert Kagan in the same newspaper a month ago:

Though it is still early and horrible acts of violence continue, there is substantial evidence that the new counterinsurgency strategy, backed by the infusion of new forces, is having a significant effect.

Are they right? I hope so. But optimism is hard, given all that's happened.

Comments

[Richard Young]

Better is good, of course. But on McCain's walkabout, he was escorted by hundreds of troops and circled overhead by heavily armed helicopters (a fact which, given his candidacy for the presidency, has caused some disquiet among Americans concerned with maintaining a non-partisan military). That's presumably why he's only "cautiously optimistic" even four years after "Mission Accomplished".

Right now, progress in Iraq feels a bit like the reduction in the size of one's debt in the first few years of a repayment mortgage: we're spending heavily, but seeing only tiny movements towards our long-term goal. Later on - a generation later - each payment will reduce the debt much more markedly. Question is, have we got the stomach for the full 25 year term? Those of us who understood the magnitude of the commitment at the outset - and that apparently doesn't include Blair or Bush - think not. And, to stretch the analogy, four years in we appear to be in negative equity and struggling to make the repayments.

In other words, I really hope this works. But just like I'm deeply suspicious of anyone who promises to "pay off your mortgage in two years", I have a horrible feeling this is too little, too late to really swing this conflict decisively our way.

Great further reading on this kind of thing from former US military in the region: http://inteldump.powerblogs.com

[Justin]

Hmmmm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvshDRBFQ4g