Today's LA Times features an editorial assessing the surge, and along the way it makes two important points:
So is the surge strategy working? Well, militarily, yes; politically, no. The administration sold the surge back in January by arguing that only by halting the escalating sectarian violence and hammering Al Qaeda could the U.S. give Iraqi leaders the calm and time to work through their political problems. But that's exactly what has not happened. The Iraqi parliament recessed Monday for a month's vacation without passing critical laws to distribute oil profits and hold local elections. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Cabinet essentially collapsed as its six Sunni ministers pulled out to protest policies of the Shiite-dominated government. Mullen bravely declared that without national reconciliation and economic growth in Iraq, "no amount of troops and no amount of time will make a difference."
...Whenever a U.S. president orders troops out of Iraq, it could take 16 months to bring them all home. Even by Baghdad standards, that's hardly hasty. It's past time to plan a strategic departure, with troop redeployments where necessary. The president needs to give Congress the realistic exit strategy he has so far been loath to provide.
Why this isn't reported more frequently by the media is something that has always baffled me. Withdrawal is going to be a multi-year process. The military knows this. The president knows this. And most importantly, the Iraqis know this. For years we've been putting pressure on them to achieve some sort of political reconciliation, and for years they have been failing to achieve anything of the sort. But given the complexity of the issues involved, and given that they know US troops will remain in their country for an unspecified number of years to come, our leverage really is quite limited. We are, in a sense, enabling failure. Why solve your problems when there's always someone there to prop you up or bail you out?
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