Matt Yglesias has a good post here about what’s really behind the ‘surge’. This is also a good example of how paradoxical or even bizarre ‘answers’ often emerge from political problems. No actual policy or strategic imperative is driving the move to escalate the conflict in Iraq. The real causes are political and psychological.
To put it simply, the presidential is neither psychologically nor politically capable of leaving Iraq. The 2006 election made it clear the current course can’t be sustained politically. Even his own party won’t back it. That leaves escalation as the only alternative. All that’s left is a rationale for doing so. And that’s what the president is now working on.
That doesn’t mean that in theory there couldn’t be a good argument for escalation, only that whatever it is, it has nothing to do with why the president is in favor of escalation. Because if it did he would have called for it at some point over the last three years. And he didn’t. All that’s changed is that option two of three — stasis — was removed from the list of options. End of story.
