The Surge is Magick!!!

Or perhaps not:

Top Iraqis Pull Back From Key U.S. Goal
Reconciliation Seen Unattainable Amid Struggle for Power

For much of this year, the U.S. military strategy in Iraq has sought to reduce violence so that politicians could bring about national reconciliation, but several top Iraqi leaders say they have lost faith in that broad goal.

Iraqi leaders argue that sectarian animosity is entrenched in the structure of their government. Instead of reconciliation, they now stress alternative and perhaps more attainable goals: streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services.

“I don’t think there is something called reconciliation, and there will be no reconciliation as such,” said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd. “To me, it is a very inaccurate term. This is a struggle about power.”

The so-called “Surge” was always described by the President as a means of furthering Iraq’s national reconciliation:

“. . . in January I announced a new way forward — sending reinforcements to help the Iraqis protect their people, improve their security forces, and advance the difficult process of reconciliation at both the national and local levels.”

It is the very goal of this strategy which the Iraqis themselves view as alien and have rejected. They understand, and have understood for a long time, even if Bush is too dense or stubborn to admit it, that U.S. goals of a stable, pluralisitic and unified Iraq are unattainable, precisely because the Iraqis themselves do not desire them. The factions in Iraq want power on their own terms, not compromise.

Whatever tactical success the surge may have achieved — and one can argue the point and the methodologies used to quantify that success — the current U.S. strategy is a miserable failure (Bush’s hallmark, after all) on a strategic level.

Even if we exclude car bombs, gunshots to the face, intra-religious killings and other forms of violence endemic to Iraq and claim we are reducing violence, Bush’s policy of sacrificing American lives in the hopes that Iraqis will come to an epiphany and seek national reconciliation is a colossal failure.

In response, we can expect the administration to continue to shift focus in Iraq from its actual goals to more attainable one. As the people of Iraq continue to reject the foreign al Qaeda elements, Bush will advance the argument that the surge was intended to oust al Qaeda. Forget that our “surge” troops are tasked with completely different goals, and al Qaeda has always been a vastly unpopular element in the equation of Iraq violence and no threat to dominate a country comprised primarily of Shia and Kurds who loathe the Sunni fanatics. Bush will continue to claim success in Iraq is just around the corner, regardless of the facts, until he hands over the whole mess to the next president.