Is the escalation working?

Published: August 11, 2007, 4:03 pm

Tags: bushist, philosoraptor, wapo, media, iraq, escalation

In today's media environment, anything positive that a liberal says about the escalation will become Bushist propaganda instantly and permanently. On account of this, anti-war liberals should not take the Lieberman path.But that's a different question from the original one: is the surge working?Since they're politicians, the Bushists did not set any specific criteria for success. That's too risky; better to have latitude after the fact to argue the escalation was a success. I hope they had eyes-only objective criteria written down somewhere in advance but with this bunch of losers, I doubt it.What hopes did Americans have when the escalation began? I see the goal as improving security to gain two things:a greater sense of safety and relief for those Iraqis on all sides who are tired of violence - that way, they might stop supporting or acquiescing to their faction's killers a chance for the Iraqi political authorities to reach compromise and institute effective civil governmentThe

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