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Posted by: hyperbola 1 year, 2 months ago
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hyperbola1 year, 2 months ago
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Petraeus to McCain and Obama - Take Another Look at the Surge
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A s he leaves Iraq this week General David Petraeus is sounding far less optimistic than Republican candidate McCain about the American situation in Iraq. Gen Petraeus says that it remains “ fragile” , recent security gains are “ not irreversible” and “ this is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade… it’ s not a war with a simple slogan.”
The Republican contenders have made their claims of success for the surge -- the American reinforcements sent last year -- although they are demonstrably contradicted by the fact that the US has to keep more troops, some 138,000, in Iraq today than before the surge. Another barometer of the true state of security in Iraq is the failure of the 4.7 million refugees, one in six of the population, who fled for their lives inside and outside Iraq, to return to their homes.
If John McCain wins the presidential election in November then his lack of understanding of what is happening in Iraq could ignite a fresh conflict. In so far as the surge has achieved military success it is because it implicitly recognizes America’s political defeat in Iraq. Whatever the reason that President Bush decided to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein in 2003 it was not to place the Shia Islamic parties in power and increase the influence of Iran in Iraq. Yet that is exactly what has happened.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/09/15/petraeus...
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