The surge was going to be as successful as the politicians in Washington would let it.

The ground work was there. The strategy worked where applied. The experience and training, one of the core strengths of the US military, where experienced fighters teach the new recruits, was bearing fruit. The generalship that entered the war had been triaged, the ones who could fight still there, the ones who couldn’t kept off the streets by the media.

All that was required was the will to do it.

There is a refusal to see the basic fact of today’s military situation. The US military can do whatever it wants to do. The raw power, the command structures, the invention and adaptation which is remarkable in such a large organisation, the depth of possible offensive and defensive strategies.

So any predictions about the surge were strictly whether political will existed to implement it. The prognosticators were by prognosticating helping or harming the project.

Derek