The Urge to 'Surge'

It has to be resisted

by Justin Raimondo

"In my column on the Iraq Study Group, I neglected to mention the most objectionable aspect of the Baker-Hamilton report [.pdf], and that is the suggestion that it might be a good idea to inject a "surge" of U.S. troops to secure Baghdad and stabilize a regime that seems about to fall. The ISG averred that, although they rejected proposals to double U.S. forces,

"We could, however, support a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the training and equipping mission, if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective."

The key part of that sentence is in the last phrase. The Los Angeles Times reports on the state of the internal debate:

"A troop increase has been opposed by Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, but it has been embraced by a growing number of military advisers inside and outside the Pentagon, several of whom have pressed the case to Bush in recent weeks.

"That group may be joined today by retired Army Gen. John Keane, an influential former vice chief of staff who met with Bush earlier in the week. Keane is to appear at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, to present a plan for a troop increase that was developed by think tank military analyst Frederick W. Kagan."

Translation: The uniformed military are against the "surge" concept, but the civilians in the Pentagon and over at Neocon Central now have a retired general on their side......

.......Both parties have a political interest in maintaining the fictions of American supremacy and our alleged ability to transform entire societies by an adroit application of resources. It can't be done. Real conservatives used to know this, and some are beginning to relearn it. What I fear is that a "kinder, gentler" form of interventionism is being sold to the Democrats now that they are in the ascendant. I also have a hunch we'll soon be hearing that "it takes a global village" to win the war in Iraq. Liberal interventionism awaits its turn at the helm: that they will take us to the brink of a disaster similar to the one visited on us by their neoconservative counterparts is all too predictable.

Neither a surge in troops nor an increase in the amount of nonmilitary aid we pump into the stillborn Iraqi "government" can revive the patient. The only way to serve – and save – the national interest is to get out as quickly as possible, before more damage is done to our prestige, the U.S. Treasury, and the long-suffering peoples of the region."