A Surge of Madness

I wasn't super-optimistic that the 2006 midterms were going to cause us to adopt a sound Iraq policy, but I did think it would result in a less unsound one. Instead, we got the "surge" -- our policy actually got worse. I never believed that the infamous September reports were going to make policy more rational, but now it seems to me that they're getting worse. Greg Djerejian looks at the longer version of Pollack & O'Hanlon's trip and it turns out to be not more nuanced than their op-ed, but more unhinged.

Meanwhile, Charles Krauthammer is now O'Pollahan's best friend and leverages their findings into further support for the burgeoning Iyad Allawi boom. And here's more on that from Spencer Ackerman. And here as well.

I find it hard to find words to describe what a disaster it may be if the US ends up engineering the return to power of a grossly unpopular ex-Baathist ex-Prime Minister. It's as if people are trying their hardest to come up with policies designed to end with Muqtada al-Sadr marching at the head of a crowd shouting "Death to America" into the rapidly abandoned Green Zone sometime in 2010.

DoD photo by Sgt. Class Robert C. Brogan