Gen. David Petraeus might be spreading the word that he’s ready to pull a combat brigade out of Iraq by year’s end, but don’t take the ticker tape out yet. Apparently, the Army is ready to shift the balance to Afghanistan, where Taliban killed ten French soldiers and attacked a US base on Tuesday. According to an exclusive interview with U.S News and World Report published yesterday, Gen. David McKiernan said the Pentagon plans to send some 12,000 to 15,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, beginning “earlier than expected,” with a brigade from the 10th Mountain Division as early as November. The rest would follow in 2009 — bringing the current troop level in Afghanistan to an estimated 51,000.

Not that anyone on the political stage would blink an eye — Barack Obama, in his effort yesterday to out-hawk John McCain in front of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (which has never met a US-led foreign war it wouldn’t support) proposed to put two combat brigades in Afghanistan by early next year. But the whole thing is starting to feel so pro forma. On cue, the media has helped Iraq right off the national radar before the biggest presidential election in recent times, so any violence happening there now seems inconsequential. So what if US-backed Sunni fighters were killed in yet another suicide bombing in Baghdad, that Kirkuk is a “powderkeg,” or that the Sunnis are on fire over the Shia-led government throwing our so-called “awakening” allies in jail in Diyala? The surge has worked and that’s the narrative we’re sticking with.

That narrative seems to be that a “surge” will work anywhere. Unquestioningly, the media will report additional troops in Afghanistan with no mind on how they will get there. The White House said in April that it would not even consider putting more troops in Afghanistan before Iraq was at pre-surge levels (virtually admitting the lack of flexibility in our force strength). It seems that’s about to happen, though, so isn’t this the perfect time to question how many “surges” our Army can take before we are off and running in another direction?