Enough with the "successful surge" folderol

"President Obama strongly opposed ... [the] surge in Iraq during his presidential campaign, and even now he has never publicly acknowledged that it was largely successful."

That, from last week, was David Sanger's opening line in the journalistic perpetuation of the mad misconception of a triumphant surge in Iraq. Even the title of his NY Times piece bellowed a victory secured: "Similarities to Iraq Surge Plan Mask Risks in Afghanistan" -- risks in Obama's Afghanistan, you see, submerged and awash in the beauty of George Bush's Iraq.

Sanger continued: "[I]n the White House Situation Room a little more than a month ago, [Obama] told his aides, '[Bush's surge] turned out to be a good thing' "; and "the surge of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan by next summer was at least partly inspired by the success of the effort in Iraq."

Sanger also noted that Defense Secretary Bob Gates, "the only holdover from the Bush-era cabinet," recently reminded Congress that "This is the second surge I’ve been up here defending" -- again, as though the first one came off swimmingly.

Indeed, Sanger's article repeatedly mirrored Gates' benign assessment of the Iraq surge (what "made the ... surge work," he wrote in another paragraph; and in yet another, the "Iraq surge worked in large part" because ...), and frankly I find that brutally gullible on Sanger's part.

Pan from Sanger's piece; fade to another NYT story this week:

"A series of car bombings devastated government institutions across Baghdad on Tuesday, provoking public and political denunciations of the country’s prime minister and the security forces he oversees.... The bombings ... highlighted an ominous convergence of politics and violence, which American and Iraqi officials have long warned will mar the country’s [upcoming] election. The vote, originally scheduled for January, was delayed by ethnic and sectarian disputes."

Granted, Sanger's piece antedated this week's carnage, but earlier bombings -- not to mention Iraq's historically violent disposition -- had foretold of continuing turmoil. This week was but one more week in a merely intermittently interrupted network of desolate strife. Recalled the Times:

"The attacks were the worst in Iraq since twin suicide bombings destroyed three government agencies on Oct. 25, killing at least 155. They fit a pattern of spectacularly lethal attacks in the capital, followed by weeks of relative calm. In August, two suicide car bombs ... kill[ed] at least 122. Those attacks became known as Bloody Sunday and Bloody Wednesday, respectively. Officials and average Iraqis promptly added the adjective to Tuesday, as well."

Iraq's prime minister blamed the attacks on familiar foes: the Baath Party and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The L.A. Times, after reporting that those responsible were "not known," went on to report that "Some believe political blocs in the central government could be sponsoring attacks in an attempt to bring down" the prime minister, while "Others believe that dissidents, including some army and police officers resentful of the political order installed by the United States, are intent on overthrowing the system."

You can take your pick from among the above options, but your choice makes little difference. The outcome of Bush's "largely successful" surge?: There they -- we? -- go again.

Prior to the surge, its critics forecast this inevitability; in fact, prior to the entire, bloody, stupid war, its critics forecast much the same.

Sanger delineated the perceived similarities between Iraq's previous and Afghanistan's present predicaments, but observed as well that "the commonalities end" when considering such national differences as Iraq's "so-called Awakening" and its notably foreign, versus Afghanistan's homegrown, insurgency.

Finally came these eeriest of lines, in my opinion, since Obama's strategy is predicated largely on training:

"[T]here is the question of whether Afghanistan’s military is trainable.... Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reminded senators this week that in Iraq it took several years to get traction, and that in Afghanistan it could take longer."

Iraq's famed "traction," however, appears to have been greased. Bush's pet project may indeed be a model for Obama's Afghanistan, but it surely isn't the one Adm. Mullen had in mind.

(This may be neither here nor there, but I couldn't resist quoting from still another NY Times piece, from yesterday, which, in relation to our training of Afghan forces, seemed to howl volumes about military logic. To wit: " The American commander in charge of training the Afghan security forces ... said that an Afghan soldier in a high-combat area like Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan would now make a starting salary of $240 a month.... [The commanding general] said that the Taliban often paid insurgents $250 to $300 a month." Brilliant. Oh, and by the way, the article also reported that "on Tuesday, President Hamid Karzai said Afghanistan would not be able to pay for its own security until at least 2024.")

In his own peculiar way, the Times' David Sanger was filing a sharply antiwar "analysis": Let us not be deceived, he was saying; the "largely successful" surge in Iraq will be powerfully difficult to duplicate.

Yet, every day, there is less and less evidence to ever pose that sought-after analogy. It is pure Bushian propaganda, designed, as Sanger himself rather confoundingly intimated, to influence "historians ... when the history of a highly problematic war is written."

Enough with this "successful surge" folderol.