Just for the sake of discussion.

Say we 'surge' up 30,000 or 50,000 troops into Baghdad. And then after 3 or 6 or 9 months, nothing has changed or, more likely, the security situation is even worse. If both those things happen, will we then be told that ramping back to the pre-surge levels is something we can't do for fear of showing weakness to the enemy or admitting defeat?

In other words, is this a surge or a ratchet?