A Whole Lot Of Shoes

Via Blake Hounshell at Passport, Tom Ricks spoke on Meet The Press this morning about Iraq and Afghanistan and his new book, The Gamble. His comments on Iraq are important and need to be considered very seriously. “All of the basic problems that the surge was meant to solve are still there,” Ricks said. That is similar to what I was saying yesterday in connection with the elections. As practically every “surge” opponent said for the last two years, on its own terms of facilitating political reconciliation the “surge” clearly failed. This is why it has never been clear to me why advocacy for the “surge”–deepening our commitment to a war that we ought to have brought to an end years ago–is supposed to win someone a reputation for insight and wisdom. I have also never understood why war opponents are supposed to feel chastened for refusing to support the prolonging and escalation of an unnecessary war.