What Does It Matter if the Surge is Working?

No longer do the Democratic presidential candidates have to explain their plans for Iraq or justify whether their stances on Iraq are well-founded. The debate last night was moved to whether or not the surge is working, a frivolous discussion which is meaningless for our men and women in harm’s way right now. What does it matter if the surge is working? Are we really going to stand for such ineptitude on display as Democratic candidates stand up on stage and try to calm our fears about the violence in Iraq by telling us that “the surge is working”? Are we really at a point where we have to justify the Democratic-controlled Congress’s lack of action on this Iraq war since the midterm election in 2006?

Like some kind of Wall Street broker, John Roberts framed the question in regards to National Guard units having to be sent back to Iraq on their third tour of duty by saying, “But it's also true that U.S. troop deaths have been declining steadily since the spring. And in fact, in the month of October, they were at their lowest level in nearly two years. At the same time, there has been a marked decline in the number of deaths of Iraqi people.” It was the kind of analysis of Iraq that I would have expected from Roger Ailes’ failed FOX News Business channel.

Given the time, however, the candidates were not going to dismiss the question as ridiculous and quite Republican and so, they responded. Some responded quite well to the question of “Is the surge working?” Others did quite awful, and when you look at previous answers in previous debates, you can see a pattern.