More on the Surge

Following up on Scott’s post about today’s outbursts in Baghdad and Basra — which suggest a possible collapse of the Shia cease-fire — here’s Marc Lynch on the other half of the walnut, the Awakenings movement:

I’ve been banging the drum for many long months trying to draw attention to the growing signs that the Awakenings program was jumping the tracks. These problems have been getting more attention of late, what with the alleged accidental bombing of an Awakenings checkpoint; the Anbar Salvation Council’s threat to use force to expel their elected Islamic Party rivals from Anbar (the first deadline passed without incident last week after US mediation, the second deadline is today); the campaign of attacks against the Awakenings forces (blamed, at various times, on AQI, the government, and Iranian-back Shia militias); and their widespread threats to go on strike over late payments and insufficient support from the US . . . . And there’s much, much more across multiple Iraqi neighborhoods and regions that I’ve been tracking in detail over the last few months. Arab and Iraqi media coverage of the Awakenings over the last few months has been dominated by their escalating complaints about the Iraqi government and about the Americans, their fulminations against the “Iranian occupation” of Iraq, and their warnings to return to the insurgency or allow AQI back in.

In which case, the obvious incapacity of the surge to accomplish its primary strategic objective — i.e., the creation of “breathing room” for sectarian reconciliation — will allow the Hundred Year War Caucus to argue once again on behalf of the flypaper theory, as the collapse of the Awakenings councils enables a revival of AQI. Failure is not merely an option — it’s the key to success!