Ask Rockridge: Answering Claims About the 'Surge'

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Recently, we were asked to address assertions that the "surge" is bringing about success in Iraq.

What are the folks who say the "surge" is working really saying? The surge-is-working claim has become shorthand for Bush supporters to imply without expressly saying that the Iraq policy is working. Further, those who claim "the surge is a success" seek to define the U.S. mission in Iraq as applying military force until "the enemy" is "defeated." This view is at odds with the reality that the U.S. is occupying Iraq, not fighting a cohesive enemy, and that military force alone cannot produce the necessary political reconciliation. We must not allow the very distinct concepts of military versus political objectives to be conflated.

The "surge" was a supposedly short-term military tactic designed to accomplish a short-term goal: to quell the political violence and allow our longer-term goals a chance to succeed. That there has been a temporary downturn in sectarian violence and in U.S. casualties is positive (though 2,100 political killings in the last three months is hardly a benign figure). The long-term goals of our Iraq policy -- at least the ones President Bush publicly articulates -- remain a distant dream.

Nearly five years after our invasion -- and four and a half years after "major military operations" were concluded and the occupation began -- Iraq still has a dysfunctional government where sectarian and ethnic differences repeatedly impede any meaningful political progress. And, as The New York Times reported in a front-page story on December 2, rampant theft and bribery exist in place of any true rule of law. In fact, according to Transparency International, Iraq ranks as the third most corrupt nation in the world (only anarchic Somalia and totalitarian Myanmar are worse). So while the "surge" has temporarily reduced violence, it has failed to advance the long-term political goals of the occupation.

Even this temporary reduction in violence is fragile, resting in large part on the promise that the Shiite-controlled government will hire huge numbers of Sunnis into the security force. So far, this is happening at an excruciatingly slow pace, placing even this slowdown in sectarian violence in jeopardy. In fact, three major bombings have taken place in the past week.

How long do we continue to keep 160,000 troops in Iraq at a cost of $1-2 billion per week (depending on whose numbers you believe), while our ultimate political goal of creating a stable democracy in Iraq is stymied by ethnic and religious forces that no number of American troops will change? We cannot let short-term improvements in stability cloud our focus on the real reason we are in Iraq in the first place.

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