As I recall, Zakaria was for the "go long" option. Now, after dishing both sides of the withdrawal debate, it's not clear he still likes that. For some unclear reason, AS thinks his latest is noteworthy.
Some of the article needs to be cleaned up.
- First of all, "the surge" was quite late, coming to force some 18 months after the key event that spawned it - a perilous and ignominious wait. Rumsfeld should have been dismissed long before the elections and Baker-Hamilton should have been accelerated.
- The US didn't need extra brigades to broker the Anbar Awakening, and the effectiveness of the military effort may be just as much due to strides coming up the learning curve on intelligence gathering and use, than expanded force-structure, per se.
- The CLC's are not all militias ...
- There has already been an meeting of the neighbors and an International Pact. It's a tribute to the Bush Administration's expert soft peddling and downplaying of the handoff, in an effort to control the politics of retreat from their pathetically vehement go-it-alone posture, that Fareed seems ... unaware.
Had Bush ever leveled with the American public about the prospects of the Iraqi effort, instead of pretending that it would be self-financing, not a quagmire, and not much more than $150 billion in total, there may have been a will to soldier on in reasonable ways.
As it is, the only political option left is withdrawal, even if it means cutting muscle. McCain will not get "re-elected" on a platform of upping or extending the Iraqi commitment.
