Conventional Wisdom and the Surge

Of late, it seems the Conventional Wisdom is that the surge is working. Ken Silverstein found an expert who says not so fast. The Surge of troops to quell the violence in Iraq may coincide with other efforts, but is it the reason for the cessation? According to Douglas Macgregor who writes for the Straus Military Reform Project, the surge ain't all its cracked up to be, and its effects are dubious at best. Money quote:

One of the unspoken assumptions that underpins the “great awakening” is that U.S. occupation forces will place untold thousands of Sunni insurgents on the U.S. government’s payroll, which will allow them to rearm and recuperate inside Sunni-pure enclaves while U.S. forces open a new front in the war of occupation against the Shiite militias. The question now is whether the Shiite militias will launch the kind of campaign against U.S. forces that the Sunnis waged for nearly four years.

Pretty depressing. What hath the Former Cheerleader wrought? The neverending war may be an understatement, if that were actually possible, at this stage of his unnecessary war.