Why the Surge is destined to fail...

At least politically.

Interesting article in the LA Times about the surge. While not the be all, end all article (I know Stalin, that would come from Rush Limbaugh's transcripts), it does show two critical things.

One, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus has no idea what the climate in the US is like, how political this issue is, and how to handle the modern media.

"People always want to get a sense of thumbs up or thumbs down," he said in an interview last week. "What I'd like to provide is a nuanced paragraph. And what we'll end up with is something in between."

At this point the war, from the public's and political perspective, is either "right" or "wrong" there's no time for nuance. There's just too much explanation fatigue. The administration, having assumed that this would be a six week war, max, made lot's of hard statements. The process of having to go back and explain the "nuances" of those statements as they show to be false is coming across as Orwellian at best, and has worn the public out. Condi's recent attempt to explain the nuances of "imminent threat" to George Stephanopolis is just the latest example. To be clear, this war is nothing but nuance, but after more than four years of hard, direct statements (Mission Accomplished, Insurgency is in it's last throes, the afore mentioned six week max, WMD's, Al Qaeda links, etc) that later haunt the administration and force the gang to go out and re-explain the statements with "nuance," the public doesn't trust them and is worn out. At this point, the public just wants an "answer."

Which leads us to why the GOP is demanding one, and the search for said answer also guarantees failure. It looks like late summer (August/September) is answer time.

Said House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.)

"We need to get some better results from Iraq both politically, economically and militarily, and that needs to happen in the foreseeable future."

Oh, is that all? Political, economic and military stability in six months with 10,000 more troops? Why, that's a slam dunk.

Said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine),"

If the president's new strategy does not demonstrate significant results by August, then Congress should consider all options — including a redefinition of our mission and a gradual but significant withdrawal of our troops next year."

Both of these quotes show that the politicians are getting jumpy. While W is out in 2008, these guys want to keep their jobs. And the jumpiness is leading them to ask for the impossible.

And here's where it comes full circle. The good General knows that there won't be any real, definite news in six months. Any real assessment of Iraq in six months, most likely, will be full of nuance, conditionals, and work in progress type descriptions. However, even those will be graded through a prism of optimism v. pessimism, expectations, and politics. Politicians, Dems for sure and growing number of GOPers, are growing pessimistic, have outsized expectations, and clearly understand and are worried about the political ramifications.

Unfortunately, the stage is not set for General Petraeus to under-promise and over-deliver to a group of optimists who are isolated from political nastiness. And I feel for the guy. He has to win an unconventional war in Iraq and an unconventional argument at home.