Surge supporters have been making a lot of noise about the unconfirmed report that Sadr has gone to Iran.  Ralph Peters, that doyen of the “kill them all” school, was foremost among the people bragging that Sadr had fled.  Peters:

What’s changed? Plenty. Mookie’s probably sensed that President Bush is cornered politically and, with little left to lose, isn’t going to settle for more half-measures.  

Yes, “Mookie” is probably closely attuned to Mr. Bush’s poll numbers.  What’s this about no more half-measures?  Yet that is exactly what Mr. Bush did settle for.  The surge is the king of half-measures.  If there were an Olympic half-measure contest, Mr. Bush would get the gold for the surge without a doubt.  It does tell us something about Mr. Bush that, even now, with his reputation destroyed at home, his political capital repossessed by the bank called the American public and his dometic agenda in tatters, he will only commit just as few soldiers as he thinks he can get away with sending.  If the Powell approach used to call for overwhelming force, Mr. Bush has, for whatever reason, adopted a minimalist approach to warfighting and continues to hold to this minimalist approach in spite of the glaring problems with that approach.  When the original invasion probably required 400-500,000 men, he sent a third as many; when any realistic hope of stabilising Baghdad probably required a major new commitment, Mr. Bush sent 20,000 plus support troops.  It used to be that he could pin this sort of folly on Rumsfeld, but no longer.  What compels Mr. Bush’s minimalism?  Probably the knowledge that the kind of massive commitment to Iraq that would actually be required to make some noticeable difference would destroy whatever political standing he still has.  If a majority is so strongly against sending just 20,000 more soldiers into combat, imagine how deafening the cries of resistance would be if Mr. Bush tried anything more than a half-measure!

Of course, Peters writes on the assumption that the report is true and that he is not, as conflicting reports claim, actually residing in Najaf, where he dwelt during his last big anti-U.S. stand.  This story of Sadr’s flight, if true, is presumably as reassuring to us today as it was when members of the Viet Cong retreated into Laos to regroup, rearm and prepare for their next operation.  Depending on how you look at this, this is either a) proof that we’ve got “the enemy” on the run; b) proof that Sadr is smarter than we give him credit for and has decided to avoid risking himself as a target and has chosen to have his militia melt into the background for the duration; c) an example that the surge is succeeding in temporarily displacing one of the major political players in Iraq, thus contributing to greater instability and aiding Sunni attacks against Shi’ite targets. 

Once again war supporters are personalising the conflict to an absurd degree.  Remember how the insurgency would start dropping off if we just got Hussein and his sons?  Remember how we just had to get rid of Zarqawi, and the insurgency would go into decline?  This is more of the same–a weird Anglo-American trait of recent years to make every foreign policy problem into a stand-off with some mini-Hitler, which has the advantage of making the people taking on mini-Hitler into microscopic Churchills.  Once we defeat the mini-Hitler, as if he were the final challenger on a level of a video game, we will have triumphed!   

Once again war supporters are taking the most meager signs of progress as evidence that something fundamental has changed, when we are probably witnessing nothing more than the annual Feburary lull in violence.  How many times have we heard from these sorts of people that a relative low in U.S. fatalities was proof of the weakening of the insurgency?  How about the insurgency being in its “last throes”?  Every year violence has declined in February, with the exception of large, spectacular bombings such as the attack on the Golden Mosque, and every year it picks up again starting in the spring.  As I recall, there is a relative lull in August, when it is very hot in Iraq and generally unpleasant for anyone to do anything.  Both before and after August killing has ramped up to relatively higher levels.  The reason why nobody outside of an ever-shrinking circle of true believers listens to what war supporters have to say anymore is that each time there is the slightest progress they overhype it and declare that we have reached a fabled “turning point” or have “turned the corner,” which is frequently followed by things getting worse a month or two later.  Worse than crying wolf, which might at least accidentally alert someone to a threat, these people keep crying “victory is just down the road”!  Then, a little ways down the road, an IED blows up next to the convoy.  They are then forced to say, “See, they hate freedom!  We’re really starting to get to them!”  

If we are supposed to measure surge success by the decrease in daily slaughter, as some would like to do, it surely must count against the surge when spectacular bombings continue to hit Shi’ite neighbourhoods with as much savagery and ease as ever.  This is what will happen when you use your power to compel the stronger party in a foreign war to back down or pull back–their relatively weaker enemies exploit the opportunity to strike as hard as they can while the stronger force is constrained by our intervention.  In 1995, the script was: bomb the Serbs and thus successfully facilitate the ethnic cleansing of the Krajina.  A noble achievement indeed.  Today, the surge briefly empowers the losing side in the war until the initiative returns to Sadr’s forces, as it inevitably will, when the revenge will be twice as severe because it will have been denied effective expression for so many months.  This is one reason why Americans have no business in middle of an Iraqi v. Iraqi war: our very successes, such as they are, prepare the ground for the perpetuation and escalation of the civil war, rather than bring about its end.

I anticipate that we will soon be offered a reprise of 2004 talking points, since we are currently engaged in little more than a reprise of 2004 tactics: the savage bombings of Shi’ite neighbourhoods show just how “desperate” the insurgents are and reveals just how “deeply worried” they are about our chances of success.  Maliki does not disappoint.  From the Times: 

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the bombings as a desperate act by ”terrorists” and ”criminals” who sense they are being squeezed.

Presumably, as the body count from their bombings rises, the insurgents become progressively more anxious about their impending defeat.