Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

As expected Bush decides to escalate the war by sending more troops into Iraq. It is an escalation even if it is called a surge. As you know I was against going into Iraq and I wanted a pull out a long time ago so my opinion on this surge is biased. I do believe, however, that the surge is the only choice Bush can make politically. If he decides on a withdrawl now or in the near future it would be admitting defeat and his legacy is decided. This surge is the equivalent of a Hail Mary in football. It is very, very unlikely to work but what the heck, it is his only chance.

There is actually a chance that this would work for a short while. Overwhelming force targeting a small area can shut down the insurgents for a time. If it calms things down for a year or so then even if the violence increase again Bush can stall things until the next president is elected. If things get worse then and we have to leave Iraq, then Bush can claim that if we had stayed his course the result would be different. Again it is unlikely that Bush can stall that long effectively but this is a better chance than the one about actually winning with the surge.

The reason this can't work in the long term is because there are violence from all different directions. There is the Shiites militias, with the blessing of the Iraqui government, against the Sunnis; the Sunnis against the Shiites; the Sunnis against the U.S.; and the foreign al qaeda fighters against the U.S. It is like killing bacteria with antibiotics and allowing fungi and viruses to grow because they have less competition. Kill some Sunnis, the Shiites get bolder etc. The increase in economic aids would have been more helpful couple of years earlier. It would have decrease the ability of all the bad guys from recruiting. Now it is a little late but wouldn't hurt to do it anyways.

John McCain may benefit from this. It seemed like a dumb move to call for increase in troops a few weeks ago given the expression of the people in the recent election. But if there is some success in the beginning then McCain looks like a genius with guts as he called for this way before Bush did. This may make a difference in the Republican primaries and also force the Democratic candidates to stake out a position rather than just criticize what Bush had done in the last 3 years. If later on things go badly, McCain can claim that Bush increased troops too late and too little. Even if things go badly before the election, McCain would likely win the Republican nomination with Bush following his idea now.

Ultimately it is not the political consequences that we should worry about. It is the enormous expense in human lives and economic losses that this escalation of the war is going to bring that should worry us. As Americans most of us hope that somehow a miracle happens and that this plan actually works. But unfortunately even if it does it would not make us safer. Working for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, going after al qaeda in Afghanistan, and decreasing our reliance on foreign oil, all of which we have not paid much attention to as a result of this war, would have made us safer. So even if this "Hail Mary" is completed, we will lose this game which we should never have played in the first place.