Spack has an article on how Sadr killed the surge (er, the US military strategy, not the small DC band):The trend toward increased violence in early 2008 does not rise to the level of the bloodshed Iraq experienced in mid-to-late 2006, before the surge began. But it does underscore the limits of what the surge achieved, according to U.S. government officials and outside experts, even on the security front where the Bush administration argued it was most successful. "The fact is, the ISF [Iraqi security forces] couldn't fulfill a major campaign against an insurgent group on its own," said a U.S. intelligence analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I personally think that's the real story. The ISF , despite the surge, and despite the [rhetoric from the Bush administration that] 'they'll stand up as we stand down,' couldn't fulfill their core requirement."That shows the extent of our tactical failure. But the very fact of this operation underscores the surge's broader strategic failure: The surge was to create the security conditions that would allow for political reconciliation. Powerful Shiite politician Maliki launching a ground war against powerful Shiite nationalist leader Sadr is not what I would call "reconciliation." That Maliki then had to send emissaries to Iran in order to ask Sadr for a ceasefire further underscores how orthogonal we are to the conflict. On the bright side, we're spending billions to arm the players!(Image used under a Creative Commons license from the Soldier Media Center.)
