I've come around to the conclusion that a surge makes no sense -- not just because the commanders don't want it but because there's no political goal it would serve.
By political I don't mean politics here at home, I'm talking Iraqi politics. It seems to me that military goals must be in sync with political goals. And the political goals of the al-Maliki government appear, as shown by the state sponsored lynching of Saddam, are sectarian violence, obviously something we can't support (or condone).
I'm moving closer and closer to the conclusion for some type of orderly withdrawal (I'll use the word, even if Speaker Pelosi won't). The Iraqis will have to determine the fate of their country. The blood-soaked lesson we've come to is that you can remove a dictator with force. But you can't force Democracy on a people. They have to want it and work towards it. And they don't appear to want it.
Hell, 200 years on and we still haven't got it right.
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