What If The Surge Is Working?
236 words.
I didn’t think the surge would do much good, but there is growing momentum for thinking that it is. And believe it or not that’s a Good Thing. Whether it’s real progress or just the media saying it’s progress, the results are basically the same (for us): We win the information war, America looks good, the terrorists look bad, our soldiers are winners instead of losers, etc., etc. I have little doubt that Petraeus’ September report will show that the surge is working, because really, what other report would he give? High-ranking officials don’t usually come out and say, “Yeah, um, my plan wasn’t very good. Sorry ‘bout that.”
So assuming the surge is working, that leaves the obvious question of what to do next. The Iraqi government appears to be doing jack squat while we’re securing their country. That means all of the MNF-I’s hard work could be for naught, because all indications are that as soon as we stop surging, everything will go right back into chaos. So it seems to me that we’ll either have to stay at surge levels forever or accept that Iraq just isn’t ready for western democracy. We handed it to them on a silver platter, and they didn’t know what to do with it. Unfortunately sometimes people need a dictatorship — now we just need to find a dictator that won’t throw chemical weapons on their own people.
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