By Paul J. Balles*

3 August 2008

Paul J. Balles argues that, contrary to US presidential candidate John McCain’s assertions, the US troops “surge” in Iraq is not responsible for the lull in the Iraqi counterinsurgency nor has it stopped the violence aimed at putting an end to America's illegal occupation.

A "surge" can refer to many things: a soft drink, the rate of acceleration change in physics, storm surges when there's an onshore gush of water associated with a low-pressure weather system or the spike in electricity that can seriously damage your computer.

Then there's the more recent misuse of the term by the US Department of Defence, the Bush administration and Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain to describe a revised counter-insurgency strategy in the Iraq occupation.

McCain says the surge is working. Either he doesn't know what he's talking about or he's lying. Both become strong possibilities since he gets his facts wrong, and a temporary lull in the Iraqi insurgency doesn't mean the violence has ended.

Alex Koppelman, writing in Salon, reported: "John McCain made an embarrassing mistake – he credited the surge with leading to the 'Anbar awakening,' even though the awakening had begun months before the surge did.”

McCain has attributed the shift of Sunnis in Anbar province away from the insurgency to the surge. Not only did the shift take place before the surge of troops, but as Joe Conason pointed out, "What changed the minds of the Sunni rebels in Anbar province and elsewhere was a revamped counterinsurgency doctrine that emphasized careful bribery over indiscriminate reprisals."

McCain says the surge is working. He also contradicts himself, saying "any timetable for leaving Iraq has to depend on conditions on the ground". If the surge is working, why isn’t a definite timetable for leaving possible? It's not working, or this wouldn't be news:

On 29 July the New York Times reported: "All told, at least 61 people were killed and 238 wounded, nearly all of them Kurdish political protesters in Kirkuk and Shi’i pilgrims in Baghdad. It was one of the bloodiest days in a year in which violence has dropped strikingly.”

According to Steve Connors and Molly Bingham, co-directors of the documentary "Meeting Resistance", which features interviews with insurgents in Iraq, "what has emerged from the violence of the past two and a half years is not a desire toward fragmentation but a reaffirmation by the Iraqi people that they will remain united".

Connors and Bingham add: "For five years now Washington has talked about unity in Iraq at the same time as backing an Iraqi administration of Kurds and Shi'i factions that seek to partition the country. It is also worth noting that these separatist factions also have the support of the Iranian regime."

American occupation and a US puppet government in Iraq have been the key forces keeping separatist movements alive. McCain's surge is nothing more than another tool of a “divide and conquer” policy designed to make the occupation of Iraq permanent. Despite McCain's self-serving campaign, the falling off of violence in Iraq had little, if anything, to do with any troop surge.

Political commentator Mike Whitney wrote:

Contrary to McCain's political spin, the surge was not responsible for the lull in the Iraqi counterinsurgency nor has it stopped the violence aimed at putting an end to America's illegal occupation.

Interference from the outside will only stop when Iraq elects a government that tells America to get out, and the American public gets serious about bringing the American troops home.