How about the problems Sadr ran into with his own people fighting each other for influence and money until he had to order a stand down if he wanted to show that he was still the one in charge? Another contributing factor completely outside any U.S. tactics or increase in troop strength.

It’s just one more example of a simplistic mindset that insists on simple explanations for complex events, especially when someone wants to take credit for the one event that they say made everything just peachy keen.

Both Obama and McCain are currently showing the sorts of gaffes that come up when a candidate is playing politics so hard and for so many marbles that he or she becomes very defensive and unwilling to concede any ground or any point. The wiser approach for both McCain and for Obama would have been to graciously acknowledge the facts as they are. Obama ought to have acknowledged that America should be pleased that things in Iraq are working out better now than they were 6 months ago, while cautioning that the hardest was yet to come and that we are being pushed to the point where keeping our troops in at current levels will become untenable. And McCain would lose nothing by acknowledging that current improvements are due both to the increase in troops and the shift in tactics. He lost an opportunity to show he was well-versed in what’s going on.

BTW, for folks interested in what these tactics are and how 4GW (4th generation warfare) works and how it can conceivably be countered, read Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife. I have yet to finish the whole thing, but I’ve already learned a lot. And FWIW, I’m not a McCain supporter _OR_ an avid hawk. I’m an independent who is currently leaning towards Obama. And on foreign policy, I’m more of a cautious realpolitiker reluctant to advocate foreign entanglement than I am a hawk. I’m no dove. I view realpolitik as a more sophisticated way of saying that our foreign policy baseline is “tit for tat.”

What do you think about CBS’s handling of the interview, by replacing the answer of his question with another less damaging answer?

So you’re saying the surge didn’t work but without the surge Iraq would still be an quagmire? The far increased stability of Iraq, which is helping produce political stability, is evidence of the surge’s failure? I don’t get it.

Not that I attribute 100% of the improvement in Iraq to the surge, I just think it’s difficult to argue that it hasn’t had a net positive effect.

George: No. I’m saying McCain was dead wrong for making the statement. Then, as a second point, I’m saying he’s right that the surge has had a positive effect. I don’t know why he felt he had to misstate the historical timeline — that loses him a few points in my book. But Obama will continue to lose points too until he acknowledges the surge has had an overall positive effect — a position he is slowly moving towards — which I’m sure will not please Ed.

Mind you, I thought the surge was a bad idea at first. So I’ve hardly come to this opinion because I was just following blindly along.

It’s amazing how naive McCain and his followers are (and the media complicit) on this simple fact: we cannot drop down to presurge levels without reservation, for fear that Iraq will fall back into a quagmire. This is proof of the surge’s ineffectiveness.

But don’t let me get in the way of the sheeple who believe the lazy MSM and need a horserace to sell papers or keep viewers watching.