Even McCain and Lieberman Can’t Escape the Truth on the Surge
The Dueling Duo of Superhawks tell us that “The Surge Worked” in the opinion pages of today’s Wall Street Journal. Their declaration is a bit strange because I remember when McCain and Lieberman were pushing for the surge and they claimed that increased troop numbers would provide “breathing room” for Iraqi politicians to address the underlying issues that are the motivation for the sectarian violence. This process has not happened, instead, and McCain and Lieberman acknowledge this effect, our massive troop levels have simply reduced violence, as one would expect them too. But for the surge to “work”, it needs to do more than reduce violence; for any new strategy to “work” in Iraq, it needs to get us closer to being able to withdraw from Iraq and leave a stable country left behind. I, for one, don’t think any US military effort can achieve this goal, and it that isn’t worth the cost to maintain troops there, so I favor immediate withdrawal. But surely McCain and Lieberman need to have a higher standard for what constitutes success in Iraq.
The second important point to remember when discussing the surge is alluded to in the piece’s title — the surge is ending. Notice how McCain and Lieberman say “The Surge Worked.”
First, it is unknown whether the security gains we have achieved with the surge can be sustained — and deepened — after we have drawn down to 15 brigades. Until we know with certainty that we can keep al Qaeda on the run with 15 brigades, it would be a mistake to commit ourselves preemptively to a drawdown below that number.
While it would nice to imagine that we could maintain the current troop levels indefinitely, as Fred Kaplan explained, it’s simply infeasible to do so. Unless we want to destroy the all volunteer military, the troop levels have to be reduced. By July, and certainly be September, the surge will be completely over.
McCain and Lieberman acknowledge these two inescapable truths about Iraq — the surge hasn’t led to meaningful political progress and it can’t be sustained — and yet they still think that we should have a Roman style Triumph for David Petraeus. Unfortunately, it’s just about impossible to envision a scenario in which McCain and Lieberman wouldn’t say that we needed to stay involved in a military conflict, so perhaps celebrating their pseudo-recognition of the surge’s ultimate folly is a bit pointless.
