Why Bush's "Surge" is Doomed To Fail

No, I'm not referring to the Democrats opposing Bush adding some 20,000 troops in Iraq, but to the cold reality that a 20,000 troop increase is virtually nothing. With 135,000 troops already on the ground in Iraq, 20,000 is about a 15% increase in the number of Self Mobile Target Units for Iraqi resistance fighters to shoot at.

If you live in a small town of a few thousand people, 20,000 troops probably sounds like a lot. If you live in New York City, that probably sounds like the number of people living in a city block.

Think about it. Iraq is a country of approximately 28,000,000 inhabitants - and you are trying to "bring peace" by controlling it with 135,000 troops - if you crank that up to 155,000 or so troops, it's still a pretty small number to be attempting to control the country with (especially with a well funded, and very active resistance fight going on).

The problem is that you cannot win a war of attrition when you are the invading force. The Iraqis live there - they don't have to go anywhere, and are quite likely somewhat less than interested in doing so. Any fool with half a brain will have long since figured out that it's costing the US government huge dollars to have the forces sitting there trying to secure the territory (and they've barely got the "Green Zone" in truth) - so, all the resistance has to do is keep things "off balance" until the US decides it can't afford to be there any more.

Even worse for American troops is the fact that the longer that they are in Iraq, the more they become the occupiers, not the liberators. Unless something big changes - and fast - there is very little chance for American troops to win over the "hearts and minds" of Iraqis - no matter what their feelings towards Saddam Hussein might have been.

Rumour has it that Bush will try blaming the problems in Iraq on the "small deployment" - but we should not lose sight of the fact that it was this same genius who stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier with a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" behind him shortly after Hussein was captured, and subsequently started reducing the troop counts. Sadly, what he and his advisors failed to understand is that what needed to happen was to reconfigure the army to facilitate the stabilization of Iraq - instead, they left it as a heavy assault force that happens to be garrisoned in Iraq - albeit a bit smaller in size.

The reality is that once you have toppled a government, it will likely take more troops, not fewer, to stabilize things for the next civilian government to take over from. (Especially when there are major cultural differences to cope with)