Michael Kinsley: Defining Victory Downward

No, the surge is not a success.

By Michael Kinsley
Posted Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008, at 2:59 PM ET

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Why was President Bush's decision a year ago to send another 30,000 troops to Iraq called the "surge"? I don't know who invented this label, but the word surge evokes images of the sea: a wave that sweeps in, and then sweeps back out again. The second part was crucial. What made the surge different from your ordinary troop deployment was that it was temporary. In fact, the surge was presented as part of a larger plan for troop withdrawal. It was also, implicitly, part of a deal between Bush and the majority of Americans who want out. The deal was: Just let me have a few more soldiers to get Baghdad under control, and then everybody, or almost everybody, can pack up and come home.

In other words: You have to increase the troops in order to reduce them. This is so perverse on its face that it begins to sound zenlike and brilliant, like something out of Sun Tzu's The Art of War. And in Gen. David Petraeus, the administration conjured up its own Sun Tzu, a brilliant military strategist.