A bit more Surge

Eaerlier this week I posted that the surge has not worked.  Today, Ezra Klein provides a nice summary of an American Prospect article that extensively makes the case (from Ezra):

Read Matt Duss
on “the Surge.” Glad as we all are that Iraq is getting better, not an
inch of the improvement, so far as anyone can tell, is related to the
surge, or has furthered the cause of national political reconciliation.
There's been a drop in violence because Sunni tribes have turned on
jihadists, because mixed areas have been ethnically cleansed, because
certain factions are tentatively working together, because Sadr has
decided to calm his militia's actions, and so forth.

We have surveyed this great bounty, noticed it has nothing to do with national reconciliation, and in fact points the other way,
and happily embraced “bottom-up reconciliation,” which means arming
various tribes and warlords under the hopes that they later,
voluntarily subsume their authority to a central government they
loathe…

But these aren't changes that we wanted. Indeed, they're changes point
away from the direction we've always claimed to favor, and are exposing
the failure of our political strategy — national political
reconciliation — which the Surge was supposed
to abet. So judged on its original aims, the surge has been a
tremendous disappointment…

Basically, the same point I was trying to make earlier this week, but much more nicely done. 

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