Keith Davis: McCain's Geopolitics: The Surge And Success

(early August 2008) John McCain was wholeheartedly behind the surge strategy, and indeed earlier than most, but unfortunately for him he was also wholeheartedly behind the invasion of Iraq in the first place. In selling the surge as a success the war in Iraq had also been sold as one. The goals that have been achieved are provisional -- a reduction in violence and improved stability in wider parts of the country. Terrorism in Iraq is a waning but not a spent force. Incidents still run at about 200 a week DOD report June 2008. Inevitably there has been a reaction of the Iraqi populace to the bloody minded fanaticism that overstepped itself enough to transcend numerous U.S. mistakes and the presence of foreign troops in a country in which nationalism is perhaps the more potent for the civil structure of the society being so... [read full story]