Surge strategy goes bankrupt

By Libby

I swear some days I think I'm caught in a time warp. I read the daily reports on Iraq and they all sound mind-numbingly the same. Today is no different.

BAGHDAD, May 17 -- More than 60 people were killed and dozens wounded in mortar strikes, drive-by shootings, roadside explosions, suicide bombings and other violent attacks in Iraq on Thursday, as a new study warned that the country was close to becoming a "failed state."

The details sound depressingly familiar. The only thing that sometime changes is the location of the violence. Seeing the ramped up attacks on the formerly secure Green Zone horrifies the mind but at least reassures that time is indeed still moving in a linear fashion. Not that you can tell that by the remaining loyalists' daily shill.

When Bush thumbed his nose at the American people and launched his trickling surge despite all contrary advice and outright opposition to such an ill-fated strategy, we were told that Petraeus was the man. He could turn it all around and promised in just one more Friedman unit, this time bringing us to September, we would see the long awaited turnaround. It's didn't take long for that timetable to be just as trashed as Diyala.

Now we're being told, it's not reasonable to expect results in one Friedman, we need two more, or ten more. We must continue to fail by degrees so no one will notice we won an occupation but are slowly, inexorably losing the war. The whole strategy reminds me of nothing so much as check kiting. You can create an illusion of available funds by constantly shifting bad checks between several accounts but in the end, there just isn't any money in the bank. Neither does this administration, nor apparently the Iraqi government, have any political capital left to buy a tidy end to this debacle.