How's that surge looking?

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Is the Surge Already Producing Results?

Now, to me, the things mentioned in the article are no surprise. My prediction would be that the enemies of the US in Iraq will try a combination of bleeding the new forces with attacks, and melting away their own visible targets - withdrawing from Baghdad and so forth. Then, when the Us is pulling troops out (and that won't be too long, since this is a 'surge' rather than a long term deployment of more troops), the fighters come back with a bang, and claim to have driven the Americans out.

The US can, of course, then stay on and fight, but the deployment will already be unpopular (well, it's unpopular now, but it'll be even worse then). Or they can do their nation building right in the time this buys them, so that their enemies have a harder time building up again once they retake the territory. Maybe that can work; time will tell. But I don't think we can say the surge is working until the final stats are in. There are too many possible strategies for the enemy.

My bet is that this does no one any good at all.