RSI Feels the Surge

GOOD NEWS! I'm not sure why but the hit count at Red State Impressions has risen from 50 per day to more than 400 today. That's a sign of progress if I ever saw one. RSI has now reached 1%--that's a full 1%--of our goal of 40,000 hits per day and we have the same sense of pride and accomplishment that the Bush administration feels in meeting 1% of their goals in the Baghdad surge campaign.

BUT LET'S BE REALISTIC. RSI has a much better chance of meeting its goals than the Bush administration has of achieving "peace and stability" in Baghdad. Today's attacks on the Iraqi parliament and the Green Zone provide ample demonstration that the surge has had little effect on the balance of forces in Baghdad. Sunni insurgents might not be able to operate in the open anymore, but the insurgents have shifted their emphasis to car bombings, IED's, and suicide attacks without skipping a beat. We've also failed to provoke Moqtada al-Sadr into the confrontation needed to destroy the Mahdi Army and end Sadr's infiltration of government ministries, the Iraqi Army, and the Iraqi police. Right now, the chances of destroying the Mahdi Army look even worse than Mike Huckabee's long shot presidential bid. Still, as long as the Mahdi Army exists, the Iraqi government will be a haven for death squads and the American mission will have failed.

DOES BUSH HATE THE REPUBLICANS? It still looks like the Bush administration's surge strategy is going to carry forward into the fall campaign next year. That will be disastrous enough for the Republican Party, but Republicans will also be expected to pledge loyalty to the Iraq War after everyone else has stopped believing. I can't help but thinking that Bush knows he's giving the Republican Party the royal shaft but doesn't care. Maybe he just hates the Republicans.