That’s not to say you’re being unrealistic in what that gloomy assessment by our own military says. But I do think you’re overplaying news that fails to balance out the disaster I believe is staring us in the face.

The surge has become irrelevant. Whether it works or not is entirely inconsequential to whether Iraq will develop into a peaceful, multi-sectarian nation which the last time I looked was still our mission. Only the Shias can make that happen. And while the report glosses over (or at least what the Post reported) the absolute political paralysis - or the deliberate refusal to get the government off square one in solving the many political problems necessary to bring the Sunnis and Kurds into the government - the importance of al-Maliki’s inability to get anything done reveals him to be little more than an empty suit. They are using a military that we trained to round up Sunnis and kick them out of their homes. They are not dealing with the militias or even trying to. And no word in the WaPo story about what is going on in the south where the Brits have pulled back into their barracks awaiting orders to leave. The real civil war will probably take place there between Iranian backed militias and cadres loyal to the SIIC as both sides vie to carve out a Shia state virtually independent of Baghdad.

These things are happening. They are being reported by our own military not some left wing loon or Democratic defeatist. And we’re worried whether the surge is “working?”

More thoughts here.