The Surge?

Bob Woodward of "All the President's Men" fame has a new book coming out in which he portrays the effects of the "Surge" as not quite being the successful juggernaut as we've all heard about time and time again.. In fact, the Surge did help at least in part -- but as Bob correctly displays there were two other major components that went into the success of downward violence in Iraq:

1.) Redeploying did help quell the surge in parts of Iraq
2.) The Anbar Awakening movement which called for Sunnis to turn against Al Qaeda
3.) Al Sadr calling for a halt to violence by his Mahdi army

So while the White House spin-meisters try to say that the surge enable the other two parts from happening .. again .. shows of their gross incompetence to understanding the volatility of the region and what the absence of power in Iraq has done to the Middle East..

The fact that there is a very prominent Shia population remains un-noticed is incredibly unfortunate.. Al Sadr is not done yet -- nor will Iran remain idle during this process.. But you can thank the Republican machine for screwing up the balance in the Middle East.. Way to go boys....

I guess that's why it's important to have someone like Palin in the Veep chair when she touts that she really hasn't paid attention to what has happened in Iraq.... Yeah, that's experience we need {end of sarcasm....}