Surge II - Even Better than Surge I

I'll bet George Bush wishes he'd never learned to say "eye-rack." Four years ago he kicked the top off an anthill and has been plagued with the nippy little creatures ever since.

After fumbling and stumbling and bumbling year after year, George decided to change course, to fight another Iraq War. What, you say, there has been more than one Iraq War? Why yes, grasshopper. There was the war to protect America against an imminent attack by weapons of mass destruction, although that one's best forgotten. Then there was the war to topple Saddam. Then there was the war to defeat the "dead enders", disgruntled Saddamites. Of course we can't forget the war to defeat al-Qaeda. Then there was the war to defeat the sectarian militias. Then, when everything else had been thoroughly botched, there was the war to reclaim Baghdad, the "Surge."

Now, even Republicans in congress realize the Surge is just another flop atop all the earlier flops. It hasn't quelled sectarian violence, it hasn't stopped the killing of American troops, it hasn't brought the insurgents to heel.

So what's a complete incompetent right-wingnut president to do? Why not try something that's worked so well before - spin? Let's call the Surge, Surge II. Rebrand the hell out of it. Then, when no one's looking, let's move the goal posts closer and lower them - a lot.

According to the McClatchy news service this process is already underway:

"Less than five months after President Bush announced that 'we need to change our strategy in Iraq,' his administration is preparing to change course there once again, this time emphasizing political rather than military progress.

"'...the search for a new direction,' as one of the officials described the effort, was prompted by a recognition that the increase of American and Iraqi troops in Baghdad hasn't produced the improvements in security or the political progress that proponents of the buildup had expected and that domestic support for the administration's Iraq policy, even among Republicans, is ebbing quickly.

"The administration's new Iraq war "czar," Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, remains skeptical that the surge can succeed, and instead has favored the kinds of political steps that Petraeus and Crocker have advocated, one of the officials said.

"There's little optimism in Baghdad or Washington, however, that a new effort to strengthen the Iraqi army, bolster the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and weaken Sunni Muslim insurgents and Shiite Muslim militias is likely to succeed.

"Publicly, the president and his advisers express confidence that the decision to send more troops to Iraq is making a difference. Privately, some administration officials are far more pessimistic.

"One of the major problems, one official said, is the Badr Corps, which is the military arm of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, which controls several government ministries, holds a key position in parliament and controls much of southern Iraq, which lies across the U.S. supply routes from Kuwait.

"Another official said he was skeptical that the Bush administration can find any credible Iraqi nationalists and persuade them to step forward, especially since doing so would invite assassination from Sunni and Shiite extremists. "The nationalists were mostly members of the (Sunni) Baath Party or a few secular Shiites," the official said. "And forget about finding a Kurd who's an Iraqi nationalist."

"A former senior U.S. defense official who still advises the Pentagon said he thought the troop buildup was doomed because there were insufficient numbers of American troops and the insurgents were gaining strength."