The point of the “surge,” as originally sold by Bush and the Kagans who thought it up, was to put a crapload of troops in and around Baghdad so that the parties could have some room to work out their problems over tea. The craploads of troops did indeed reduce the violence like basic math predicts, yet somehow the tea parties never happened. The Shiite and Sunni parties still hate each other. The animosity might even be worse now that we have built Maliki-hating tribes in Anbar into a credible threat to the government. They still want each others’ land and each others’ blood.
Correct my logic if I missed something but temporary fixes, the proverbial thumb in the dike, don’t usually count as a solution. Eventually, just like our surge troops, the thumb has to come out. Indeed, the troops have already started coming home, to be followed by tens of thousands more by early next year. Whether we need them or not, the broken state of our military reserves ensures that the numbers simply will not go up again. It doesn’t take very much strategic genius on Muqtada Sadr’s part to lay low while we’re strong (which he has) and start right up again as soon as we’re spread out and vulnerable.
If we had some sign that the opposition sects want to talk to the central government or the central government wants to talk to the Sunnis then I would feel more hopeful. Sadly that just has not happened. If anything the rift has gotten worse. Free advice being worth what you paid for it and doubly so when it’s unwelcome, if I were a rightwing blogger I would think hard about throwing a premature victory ball so soon after being caught doing the same thing over and over and over again. I understand that Kagan’s quick fix makes sticking one to the liberals awfully tempting, but try once in a while to recognize a trap when you see one.