i see. we owe everything we've accomplished in Iraq to "the surge."
I never said that, I said its been the largest and most important factor.
so the new talking point is that the Sunni Awakening and the Shia militia stand-down would have been impossible without "the surge."
I stated multiple times including a previous post that the United States had been talking and dealing with Sunni tribes and insurgents for years, since 2004 in fact. Its not that such pacts and alliances were impossible, I alluded to the fact above that many of them existed prior to the Surge, but the surge and change in tactics and deployment patterns of US troops as well as increased US troops for imbedding with Iraqi forces and training other forces made these things far more effective than that would have been without the Surge.
this totally ignores the fact that Sadar orders an end to execution-style killings in February of 2006, and that he called for a ceasefire in August of 06 that has miraculously held ever since.
Totally incorrect on those dates. The Shia Mosque bombing which increased the sectarian violence in Iraq happened in February of 2006!
Sadar's moves have been a reaction to the growing strength of the Iraqi government and military do to the efforts of the United States military which has been building Iraq's military from scratch since 2003. Sadar forces were crushed twice in 2004 by the US military and since then he has avoided full scale open conflict with the US military. During the fighting in Najaf in 2004 the US military achieved kill rates in excess of 300 per day on Sadar's forces. While its important that Sadar's movement remains peaceful, it never had the level of impact on violence that the Sunni insurgency and Al Quada did.
certainly American troops played a role in the ceasefire and the Awakening, but "the surge" itself didn't, and without these two things, "the surge" would have failed.
Its true that the United States military did not just begin conducting counterinsurgency exercises with the Surge and its also true that the United States military had made progress before the surge, but the Surge allowed the United States to exploit gains made and reverse negative factors which led to a much faster rate of development and the capturing and killing of insurgents and members of Al Quada. It allowed for troops to be deployed at sufficient levels in many area's of Iraq so that the US military could effectively protect the civilian population and successfully hunt down insurgents. As the civilian population became less fearful of the insurgents and Al Quada, the numbers in the Anbar Awakening grew.
The fact is, you did have the Anbar Awakening prior to the Surge, but you did not have the dramatic improvements in security, Iraqi military force capability, economic improvement, and political progress that have happened over the past 18 months at this rapid rate. While all these factors are important, the key here has been changes in US tactics, and an increase in US forces levels which allowed for rapid achievement of multiple development goals which will help prevent the return of violence in the future.
so, taken on it's own, no question, the surge has reduced violence and increased security in Baghdad (the partitioning of Baghdad into ethnic neighborhoods certainly helped as well ... blast walls and razor wire separating neighborhoods does much, as does the fact that a large section of the male population age 15-50 is dead or displaced, so there's not as many people to kill or be killed).
Again, if simpling partitioning and seperating ethnic groups alone was the way to reduce or end violence, the Bosnian war would have been over in 1992. Bosnia proved that, that alone did virtually nothing to reduce the violence. Nor did the slaughter of 10% of the population stop violence or reduce its rate. You don't have anything remotely similar to that in Baghdad or in Iraq. Casualties so far in Iraq pale in comparison to the huge numbers in Bosnia with respect to the size of the population.
The US forces started first in Baghdad, but then went out from Baghdad to other areas in other provinces and succeeded in reducing violence all over the country.
some Iraqi lives have been spared, no question.
Thousands of lives have been saved over the past 18 months. In respect to choosing the Surge, vs. withdrawing all US combat brigades by March 31, 2008, hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved and perhaps more given the uncertain future Iraq would have after the pre-mature withdrawal of US forces.
and the government is now confident enough not to be bullied around by the Bushies as much. but, what else has been accomplished, big picture-wise, especially since 2003?
A government, an economy, a new military have all been rebuilt in the space of only 5 years. The accomplishment is enormous. You consistently said that it could not happen, and that Iraq was NOT A REAL COUNTRY. Iraq needed to be divided into three country's per the Biden plan. Sorry, but it does not look like that is going to happen. If anything, you should be more amazed than anyone since you said it was impossible for the United States to resolve the conflict and rebuild the country.
the Middle East is unchanged
Well, the security of the Persian Gulf States was vastly improved with the removal of Saddam from power. You now have an Iraq that is moving toward stability, that will not be a threat to its neighbors, and could help bridge the divide that seperate the Sunni and Shia worlds. Removing Saddam, and then rebuilding Iraq are vital to the security of the region and the world.
our position in Iraq is unsustainable
You have been saying this for years, but its just not so as time has proven. The United States military is actually larger than it was in 2003 in terms of active combat brigades. The United States continues to spend a smaller portion of its GDP on defense and the war than it did on defense in the peacetime of the 1980s. No matter which way you look at it, the idea that the US position in Iraq is unsustainable is false.
Afghanistan is a big old mess.
There has been an increase in violence in Afghanistan, but even at the current rate, the level of violence there has been much smaller than it has been in Iraq. Its only now that violence in Iraq has been dramatically reduced to low levels that you have months where casualties in Afghanistan have equaled or exceeded casualties in Iraq. On balance, the occupation in Afghanistan is the most successful occupation of that country in its 4,000 year history.
the future success, or not, of Iraq is going to depend on the Iraqis themselves and their government. and just how well they're going to re-assimilate a full 20% of the population that has official refugee status.
Actually it depends on how the United States handles the continueing nationbuilding and counterinsurgency exercises it is engaged in which directly will impact the ability of the Iraqi's to sustain development and keep a secure environment without US ground forces.
Bosnia has done relatively well over the past 10 years and has successfuly re-assimilated much of the over 70% of the population that was displaced, a much larger figure to work with compared with the 12% of the Iraqi population that has moved from places they lived in country or out of the country. In addition, Iraq's population has already experienced more sudden and extreme population shifts in the past with the Iran/Iraq war, and the Shia and Kurdish uprisings in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War. The population shift over the past 5 years has been much more gradual preventing many of the usual problems involved with refugees as seen in Bosnia, Kosovo and many other conflicts.