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Why Staying The Course Doesn’t Work

This New York Times piece provides some pretty clear evidence why “staying the course” in Iraq simply won’t work, for us or for the Iraqis:

Along with a sharp increase in sectarian attacks, the number of daily strikes against American and Iraqi security forces has doubled since January.

Our troops are facing an increasing number of attacks, twice what they faced at the beginning of this year. We’ve been in Iraq for over three years now. When exactly will these attacks decrease, let alone stop, if we continue to stay this course?

“The insurgency has gotten worse by almost all measures, with insurgent attacks at historically high levels,” said a senior Defense Department official who agreed to discuss the issue only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for attribution. “The insurgency has more public support and is demonstrably more capable in numbers of people active and in its ability to direct violence than at any point in time.”

And remember that the insurgency doesn’t have much of anything to do with the sectarian civil war in Iraq either. So, in addition to Iraqis picking up arms and fighting each other, the insurgency is stronger now than it’s been since the fall of Saddam’s regime. Not only are we trying to quell the raging sectarian violence, but we’re having to battle the insurgents that want us out of their country all together. And these insurgents have never been stronger.

How again is “staying the course” going to solve our problems in Iraq? It just looks like more lost lives, lost money, and lost time to me. And with real terror threats emanating from various places around the globe, sometimes from our own country and as close as Great Britain, why do we think we have the resources and time to immerse ourselves in a civil war in Iraq? I think the phrase “foreign policy disaster” only touches the surface of a description of our involvement in Iraq.