I have to admit- sometimes when I come here I think you are very good at the trees, but have a problem with the forrest. What difference does the surge make when it's the whole war that's the problem? It's a tree in the forrest. It's like trying to prove the war is going badly when everyone else is ready to leave the whole thing behind.

Did "teh SURGE(tm)!!!" accomplish a collapse of the then-growing domestic pressure to change the U.S.' Iraq-occupation-forever policy of the Bush Jr. administration, particularly after the 2006 elections and the "Iraq Study Group" report?

Yes.

Mission accomplished.

The sunnis didn't "switch sides" as Kaplan says. The U.S. decided to accomodate them. We pay them not to fight and leave them to there own areas provided they keep the foreign fighters out of their areas.

A lot of the frustration liberals have had with the Surge commentary is that the original plan behind the Surge was to increase security in order to accelerate political reconciliation. Security did increase, but reconciliation has arguably backslid.

This line of argument bothers me for two reasons. For one thing, where exactly is it written that the "original plan behind the surge" was only and exclusively to accelerate political reconciliation? Is there some Official Repository Of Goals Of Military Ventures one can point to and say "aha yes I see, reconciliation was officially the goal, and increasing security was not"? For that matter, even if there were an 'official goal' of the surge X but we ended up accomplishing Y, who cares? If security has increased, security has increased. That's either a good thing or a bad thing and if it's good, I'll take it (you won't?). The idea that one can dismiss whatever progress comes up if it (supposedly) wasn't the official, stamped-and-ratified goal of the policy is a bit facile. I mean, I can't very well disprove that political reconciliation was alone and exclusively the official goal of the surge because I had no idea such a thing existed or could possibly exist until the left seized upon this argument.

Secondly, and more generally, the notion that a military venture can have - as its goal - a large group of other people choosing to reconcile with each other makes no sense to me. As a desired outcome, sure; as a hope-for side effect, of course, but as the goal, in the sense that 'if they choose not to do X, we have failed'? Perhaps Iraqis will choose to reconcile with each other (whatever that is deemed to mean) and perhaps not; that is ultimately up to them, not our military. And if they choose not to, our military "failed"? This is not how military operations ought to be evaluated in the first place, even if it were the "original plan behind the Surge" - which, again, I don't concede in the first place.

On the other hand all "Surge" talk bothers me anyway because, sorry but what the hell is a "Surge"? We either have some troops in Iraq or we do not; the number fluctuates; it is not frozen in time or set by law. So, a couple years ago we had been maintaining, for a while, a troop presence of 120,000 in Iraq (or whatever the number is). At some point we ramped it up to the point where it's 150,000 (or whatever the number is). So what? Why is the number being 150,000 instead of 120,000 called a "surge" and evaluated as if it is a separate and distinct policy from the other 120,000? Are those extra 30,000 troops special in some way? What was so special or set-in-stone about the earlier, 120,000 number? Was 120,000 the "normal amount of troops to maintain in Iraq" and 150,000 is special and peculiar and that's why we need to give it a whole new name, and evaluate it entirely separately from the Iraq occupation itself, and have entirely new arguments about it? Silliness.

Sonic Charmer, the Surge wasn't just sending some more troops to Iraq; it involved a redeployment of the troops and a redefinition of their mission which codified the fact that they were pursuing a counterinsurgency strategy to create zones of safety, not a search-and-destroy strategy against "the terrorists". This shift had sort of been in the offing since late 2005 but it wasn't until they put Petraeus in charge and gave him extra troops and the authority to cut deals with local forces and concentrate lots of troops in particular zones that it was really implemented.

This scenario plays out a lot: you get angry at a stupid boss who has a dumb idea. The stupid boss's dumb idea is a big failure, but he's still the boss. Gradually smart people with savvy political skills get his ear and start to suggest pretty good ideas to mitigate the mess he made. Then the boss, and those savvy people, claim credit for the pretty good ideas and for making things so much better than they were before. And the people who knew from the start how idiotic the whole thing was just have to fume that the boss is still stupid. Which he is. It's an irritating situation and I don't know what one is supposed to do about it.

Sonic Charmer, the Surge wasn't just sending some more troops to Iraq; it involved a redeployment of the troops and a redefinition of their mission which codified the fact that they were pursuing a counterinsurgency strategy to create zones of safety, not a search-and-destroy strategy against "the terrorists".

You're right. It wasn't 'just' having more troops stationed in Iraq. They were also doing more/different stuff there (as you say, pursuing a slightly different strategy). And..? Was the stuff/approach they were doing/using before set in stone? was it 'the normal strategy'? I still don't understand why any of this is called "The Surge" and merits a whole new argument, rather than "The Iraq occupation, in which the approach was changed slightly", being subject to the same exact arguments as before.

And I notice you say part of their goal was to 'create zones of safety', i.e., increase security in Iraq. Seems to have happened. But of course Ezra et al have access to the secret document entitled The Officially-Ratified Goal Of The Surge, and it says 'reconciliation', not 'security', so I guess the security counts for nothing.

This scenario plays out a lot: you get angry at a stupid boss who has a dumb idea. The stupid boss's dumb idea is a big failure,

What plays out a lot is that plans change and approaches change. Yes. And this goes tenfold for warfare and military operations. I don't know why it should be considered particularly surprising, significant or noteworthy in this case. The summary here is that compared to, say, 2005, the US military presence in Iraq is (a) slightly bigger and (b) doing some different stuff. The result seems to be that security in Iraq has increased. I don't agree that this makes it a whole new war that I have to listen to entirely new arguments over. Meanwhile, there is no reason not to consider the change, and results, a good thing other than politics. This 'but that wasn't the goal of the surge' line smacks of politically-motivated goalpost-moving.