As we head into the Republican convention, expect the triumphal wing of the Republican Party to promote the success of the Surge. Neocon commentators on FOX News last week – such as Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes and Morton Kondracke – were criticizing Barack Obama for failing even to mention the Surge. They weren’t really expecting him to do so, because “of course” the Surge has been such a success.

This argument about the success of the Surge is John McCain’s antidote to any criticism Obama may direct at him for his early support of the Iraq War and his poor judgment in continuing to defend it. The picture we will receive is of John McCain standing bravely against the countervailing political winds, defending instead an unpopular Surge and an unpopular president, because it was the correct, prescient thing to do.

The Surge Is Not the Success it is Made Out to Be

The Surge was initiated in January, 2007 with the addition of five U.S. brigades in Iraq, totaling 21,500 troops, and with the extension of another tour of duty for 4,000 Marines due to come home. By June of last year the Surge was at full strength with about 28,000 troops participating in various counterinsurgency operations in Anbar, Diyala, Basra and other provinces, and initiating additional patrols in Baghdad.

The Surge has been accompanied by a dramatic decrease in U.S. military casualties in Iraq, to levels that were the norm in 2005, and in some months to levels last seen in 2003. There has been a corresponding decrease in Iraqi civilian casualties, though violence in all parts of the country remains high and Iraq can hardly be described as a country at peace. The decline in U.S. casualties has been attributed by the media to the Surge, and both the media’s attention to Iraq and the public’s interest in the war have waned now that casualties are much lower.

This simplistic picture ignores some crucial developments that were underway in Iraq throughout 2006 and assumes an unwarranted cause and effect between the Surge and the drop in casualties. The American public hasn’t been informed well about the full, complicated antecedents to the Surge, and John McCain has not helped by confusing the public with an alternate reality involving a timeline where he has certain 2006 events occurring after the Surge, in 2007.

There were at least three crucial developments in 2006 that preceded the Surge and set the stage for the decline in violence. The first had to do with the rupture between the Sunni insurgency and al-Qaeda in Iraq. The group that styles itself al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was certainly not in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion, consists of a motley collection of foreign jihadists from throughout the Islamic world, including Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and especially Saudi Arabia. The size of al-Qaeda in Iraq has been estimated from 5,000 to 20,000 jihadists, and it had a loose collaboration with the Sunni insurgency from 2003 to 2006.

The dominant role of al-Qaeda in Iraq by Saudi jihadists is important because they have brought to the group a particularly conservative form of Islam known as Salafi’ism, which strictly outlaws such “immoralities” as drinking alcohol, mixing of the sexes, and education for women. The jihad movement has been focused primarily on ousting the infidel American invaders, but early on al-Qaeda in Iraq decided to exacerbate the Sunni-Shi’ite split by targeting Shi’ite mosques, Shi’ite pilgrims, and prominent Shi’ite imams.

The Sunni insurgency, composed largely of the military and tribal supporters of Saddam’s regime, had as its goal the restoration of the Sunnis to their traditional role as rulers of Iraq. The insurgency was more than happy to enter into an alliance with al-Qaeda in Iraq as long as the jihadists were attacking either the coalition forces or the Shi’ites, but by 2005 the jihadists had taken complete control over key Sunni provinces and cities, and were beginning to impose a strict moral code that involved trials and executions of Sunni offenders processed through Sharia courts run by the jihadists.

By 2006, a serious rupture had occurred when al-Qaeda in Iraq demanded that all Iraqis, Sunnis included, swear allegiance to al-Qaeda’s Islamic Republic of Iraq. The rupture proved fatal when al-Qaeda in Iraq killed several Sunni tribal leaders who did not comply with al-Qaeda demands. At this point, the Sunni insurgency approached the U.S. military about a rapprochement, and a deal was arranged in which the insurgency would be given control over their own security in their provinces, and each member of the Sunni insurgency would be given a cash payment monthly, plus equipment, if they ceased their attacks on U.S. forces and instead focused their attention on removing al-Qaeda in Iraq from Iraq.

Thus was born what are called the Sunni Awakening Councils, organized by tribe, and comprised of ex-insurgents who are now on the payroll of the United States government. Very quickly, jihadist bodies began showing up on the streets of Sunni towns and cities. Attacks by car bombs against U.S. patrols declined dramatically. Within months, it was safe for U.S. troops to drive through Anbar province, previously the hotbed of resistance to the U.S. occupation, and by the time the Surge was approved, the Sunni insurgency was given effective control over Anbar, including the right to man checkpoints and arrest violent offenders.

The second important development occurring at this time was the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad, the control of which is essential for any group wishing ultimately to control Iraq. Baghdad had been roughly split between Sunnis in the western part of the city, and Shi’ites to the east. Death squads organized by the Sunni insurgency, and in turn by the Shi’ite militias, especially the Sadr Corps, rampaged through Baghdad day and night, targeting shopkeepers, homeowners, worshipers at mosques – anyone who could be readily identified as belonging to the opposite religious sect.

Neighborhoods quickly became either entirely Shi’ite or entirely Sunni, dependent on their own militias and watch groups for their safety. Given that Shi’ites overall in Iraq constitute at least 60% of the population, and given that Shi’ites dominated a weak federal government that had at least the right to call in U.S. military forces in support, the cards were stacked against the Sunnis. As this ethnic process accelerated from 2004 – 2006, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled their homes, most of them Sunnis. There are an estimated 700,000 refugees in Jordan, and over 1,000,000 in Syria, and despite their precarious position in these countries, it is a sign of the permanence and success of ethnic cleansing in Iraq that few of them have come home.

The ethnic cleansing campaigns had largely run their course by 2006. All of Baghdad had been demarcated into precise Sunni and Shi’ite enclaves, and it was estimated that now, after so many Sunnis had fled for their lives, Baghdad was 75% Shi’ite. Enter into this picture the third development in 2006 that was to solidify the gains made by the ethnic cleansers – the U.S. military’s civil engineering program to “lockdown” Baghdad into a collection of ethnic and sectarian havens.

The U.S. military, borrowing tactics from the Israelis that were now part and parcel of Gen. Petraeus’s counterinsurgency manual, erected enormous concrete walls throughout the city, forcing civilian traffic through dozens of checkpoints. People who live in Baghdad, echoing what has been said by Palestinians in the West Bank or by Iraqis living in Fallujah, say that Baghdad has ceased to be a metropolis. It can take all day to get to a part of town that used to take 20 minutes during Saddam’s regime. People are safe from further ethnic cleansing in their own neighborhood, but the cost of that security, according to one reporter who was in Bagdhad this month, is that at night there is no traffic, no shops are open, no commerce takes place, there are no movie houses or cafes open for entertainment, and public places like parks remain very unsafe.

By the time Bush’s Surge troops began arriving in 2007, IED attacks were already on their way down, as were the “disappearances” that marked the worst of ethnic cleansing. The U.S. was no longer needed in Anbar province, which had been handed over to the Awakening Councils. Prime Minister al-Maliki had begun the first of his several military campaigns against enemies of the government, including Shi’ite tribes or gangs which ran criminal operations in Basra, or the Sadr militias which dominated east Baghdad. The U.S. military was able to use its Surge troops as important back-up in these campaigns, and they were also critical in patrolling the new, walled-off enclaves that constituted what was left of the city of Baghdad.

The Surge, in other words, consolidated the gains made largely by the Shi’ites in their ethnic cleansing efforts, helped finish the job of erecting 10 foot high walls in Baghdad, joined with the Iraqi government in defeating or at least subduing enemies of al-Maliki, manned the checkpoints and controls in places like Baghdad and Fallujah, and perhaps most crucially, allied the U.S. military with the Sunni militias/insurgents, now called Awakening Councils.

The Surge is not the success claimed by the Republicans and the neocons who dominate Republican foreign policy, because it came very late in a process that was well underway in 2006. This process had already turned the Sunni insurgency against al-Qaeda in Iraq and allowed both Sunnis and Shi’ites to consolidate their positions in the civil war. If anyone outside of Iraq can take credit for the decline in violence, it is not so much the U.S. military, as the U.S. taxpayer. The taxpayer is paying up to $150 million in cash per year to the Sunni insurgency that has taken the lives of over 4,000 Americans and has seriously injured at least 20,000 others. This cash is used to pay monthly salaries of at least $300 to each Sunni militia member of the Awakening Councils, and it is used for “reconstruction” in Sunni provinces. Twenty percent of this amount is skimmed off the top by Sunni tribal leaders, many of whom have now become wealthy and powerful men in Iraq.

This new source of Sunni wealth and power, more than anything, has motivated the al-Maliki government to demand that the U.S. sign an agreement with timetables for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Shi’ite leaders have complained bitterly about the rearming of the Sunni militias by the U.S., and no less a figure than Ayatollah al-Sistani in Najaf, the supreme Shi’ite religious figure in Iraq, has begun demanding an early and complete withdrawal of the U.S. as occupier. The Shi’ite leadership is making the calculation that their current position vis-à-vis the Sunnis is sufficiently strong for them to dominate the country and its government, but that any further resources that are channeled to the Sunnis may once again tip the balance of power against the Shi’ites.

If there can be any claim of “success” for the Surge, it can be said to have evened the playing field in the civil war, at the price of fracturing the country into sectarian power centers, and allowed even the Iraqi government to now call for U.S. withdrawal.

Why the Surge is a Failure

An argument can certainly be made that it is too early to tell what the effects of the Surge will be. Even Gen. Petraeus describes the situation in Iraq as “fragile” and prone to reversal at any time. Civil wars often go through lulls during which time the warring sides consolidate and rearm; this was certainly the experience in Lebanon. It is plausible that the civil war in Iraq will erupt once again whether the U.S. stays or not, particularly if it stays, because now the U.S. is caught on one hand in an alliance with the Sunnis, and on the other hand in a formal arrangement with the Shi’ites who run the government and have an ability to demand U.S. military assistance in any of the campaigns that al-Maliki wishes to pursue. The entire Basra campaign, involving Shi’ite against Shi’ite, caught the U.S. military by surprise, and was successful only to the extent U.S. ground forces and airpower came to al-Maliki’s rescue.

But the question of success of the Surge is always done in an Iraqi context, and never in conjunction with the overall “War on Terror”, or specifically the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. military, however, is operating in two theatres, and military resources once looked at in that light put the Surge into a quite different perspective.

The Afghanistan war situation has been steadily deteriorating for the U.S. The Taliban have reconstituted their military resources in Pakistan and now have a sanctuary in Pakistan that provides ease of access to Afghanistan. It plays the same role as Cambodia did for the North Vietnamese, and the U.S. faces the same difficult decision as to whether to widen the war to another country in order to deprive the Taliban of their safe haven.

This safe haven borders the mountainous southeast provinces of Afghanistan, particularly Kandahar, which is home to Afghanistan’s second largest city, and the “former” headquarters of the Taliban. Even when the Taliban had taken control of Kabul in the 1990s, Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders continued to reside in Kandahar, where the Taliban had first arisen, and from which they received a steady supply of armaments from Pakistan.

What has been lost in the news out of Iraq and the general U.S. preoccupation with its national election are recent developments that have led to Taliban repossession and control of Kandahar. On June 12, the Taliban launched an audacious attack on Kandahar’s prison, by ramming two trucks filled with explosives into the walls of the prison and blowing them up. The drivers of the trucks deliberately died in the explosions, which were followed by armed attacks of Taliban soldiers arriving on over 30 motorcycles. At least 1,000 prisoners escaped, including 400 Taliban militants.

The Taliban now roam the streets of Kandahar, dispensing “justice” to a population part of which welcomes them back, and the rest of which are terrified at their presence. The U.S. coalition has lost control of Afghanistan’s second biggest city and allowed the Taliban to reestablish their home base directly in the country. This is not only the biggest setback so far for the coalition in Afghanistan, it shows the utter powerlessness of the Kharzai government in Kabul. The Afghanistan government has already gone back to opium crops as its principal source of foreign exchange revenue, and now the security situation is starting to look similar to that which faced the U.S. before it invaded. The only thing missing in this picture is Osama bin Laden, though for all the West knows he may be back in Afghanistan.

Responsibility for security in Kandahar province rests with Canadian coalition troops under the command of Brigadier General Denis Thompson. Earlier this year, Gen. Thompson requested that the U.S. send 1,000 additional troops to support his efforts, but they could not be spared. It is only now, after Kandahar has been lost, that the U.S. is sending 800 more troops to Thompson’s base of operations north of the city of Kandahar.

What if 28,000 troops had been readily available in January to buttress the coalition position in Kandahar? What if some of those concrete walls and berms that are omnipresent in Baghdad had been available in Kandahar and positioned around the prison, which was completely vulnerable to a truck bombing attack?

The Taliban have learned their new tactics using suicide bombs and IEDs from the insurgents in Iraq, some of whom have fled to Afghanistan following the establishment of the Awakening Councils. The Taliban resurgence has been successful partly because of these tactics, partly because they have a safe haven in Pakistan, and partly because the coalition is woefully undermanned in Afghanistan. There is where the Surge has been so costly, and why it has been a failure. The Surge has been part and parcel of the Bush Administration’s exclusive focus on Iraq, at the expense of the larger effort of stabilizing Afghanistan and neutralizing if not destroying both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The Surge is symbolic of a catastrophic military adventure against a non-threatening nation, that has deprived the U.S. of the resources necessary to stop the Taliban from reestablishing itself in Afghanistan.

When you think of the Surge, think Afghanistan, where coalition deaths are now exceeding those of the coalition in Iraq. When you think of the Surge, think of a failing war in Afghanistan where the U.S. is losing ground and is on a slippery slope to a terrible loss of the country altogether to the Taliban, Islamic insurgents, and ultimately the reemergence of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. When John McCain and his neocon cheerleaders tell you all about his steadfastness and courage in supporting the Surge, and how successful it has been, ask yourself what the broader tally of gains and losses tells us in the fight against those who attacked us on 9/11. When looked at that way, the Surge is a phenomenal waste of valuable military resources that could have been used elsewhere, where the real “War on Terror” is being waged.