The relative calm in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East has caused a number of neoconservative commentators, most of whom were uncharacteristically quiet during the last 18 months, to again begin trumpeting the success of the Bush administration's military occupation of Iraq. Sen. McCain is being hailed as a military genius who wholeheartedly supported the reinforcing of the occupation, while Sen. Obama is being taunted for having been against "the surge" that they presume to have been the cause of this relative calm.
However, it's important to keep in mind that the vast majority of journalists and commentators on both sides of the political spectrum know very, very little about anything but the political horse races that they prefer to cover. Thus, the intrinsic absurdity of a tactical reinforcement making a major difference in a strategic campaign doesn't even begin to occur to them; the salient point is not whether "the surge" has been a success or a failure, but rather that it has always been entirely irrelevant to the ultimate fate of Iraq. The reinforcement was never anything but a political stop-gap, meant to buy the administration time to withstand the growing pressure to withdraw American troops in the hopes that the calm purchased by a negotiated cease fire would eventually relieve that pressure.
But in that political sense, "the surge" has apparently worked. However, according to the soldiers stationed in Iraq who email me from time to time, the recent decline in American casualties is more the result of negotiations combined with the various Iraqi forces biding their time and preparing for future conflict than from any combat successes derived from the presence of additional troops. With both the provincial Iraqi elections and the American national elections approaching, in October and November respectively, it seems quite probable that the cyclical level of violence will again begin to rise again over the summer. It will be interesting to see how those who declare that "the surge" has all but ended the war in Iraq will attempt to spin their previous claims of victory.
There can't be any doubt that they will admit to having been wrong, of course. One need only count how many times al-Qaida has been defeated in Iraq to understand that an American victory in Iraq is not only improbable, it is not even theoretically possible because no one, least of all the president and his advisers, have any idea what a victory in Iraq would consist of.
Despite the many brickbats of the media, al Qaeda has been defeated in Iraq, and is now retreating to lick its wounds where it can.
– Strategy Page, April 30, 2006
Al-Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled
– Washington Post, Oct. 15, 2007
Military: "Surge" Has Defeated Al Qaeda In Iraq
– U.S. News, Oct. 15, 2007
"Al Qaeda is on the verge of a strategic defeat in Iraq"
– Fox News, May 30, 2008
Like those video game reviewers who insist on describing RTS games like Warcraft and Command & Conquer as "strategy" games, the media consistently confuses tactics with strategy. The great challenge facing both President Bush and his successor is to define victory in Iraq; until this is successfully accomplished, it cannot be affected.
The problem is that most of the more probable results, such as an independent Kurdish state at war with Turkey in the North, a democratically elected Iraqi government allied with Iran against Israel, an unsettled state riven by civil war, are all rather difficult to portray as victory. When one considers that these issues don't even begin to take into account the complications presented by the incipient Saudi succession and the recently expressed aggression being directed at Israel by Iran and at Iran by Israel, "the surge" begins to look exactly like it is: an irrelevant and minor drop in a not very peaceful bucket.