How are the Insurgents/Shiites/Sunnis Responding To 'The Surge'??? And Bush's response???

I recall Bush saying that the reason for 'the surge' was to put down the violence in and around Baghdad.

So how successful has 'the surge' been in meeting that goal? And how have the Insurgents/Shiites/Sunnis responded?

Well so far the number of deaths per day and per week has increased.
Attacks on the Green Zone have increased.
Shiites have taken to the streets protesting the US presenced in Iraq.

And Bush's response:

And now Bush has increased the number of troops sent to Iraq as part of 'the surge.'
He is calling up ill equipped and insufficiently trained National Guard to go to Iraq.
And yesterday it was announced that the deployments of troops will be extended from 12 to 15 months.


It just seems to be a replay of the Johnson solution to Vietnam --increasing the number of troops in an obviously intractable situation rather than making plans to withdraw, and blaming everybody who opposes further troop deployments for the failure to win.

First the good news:

In '08 we'll see either Obama or Clinton in the White House.

Now the bad news:

This war will deliberately stretch into and be inherited in a worse state by the next democratic president and within minutes, maybe even seconds of being sworn in, the republicans will be claiming the current administration's war policy is flawed and will be demanding that the troops be withdrawn within a week and start criticizing the democratic president for not acting fast enough to get them home.

... and then they will begin calling for the troops to come home.

In the meantime, the step up in attacks on US troops and protests in the streets could not be any more demonstrative in communicating their response to 'the surge.'

They have mostly avoided direct confrontations with our escalation and its force projection into Baghdad, with a notable exception last week when they took on a patrol into a sunni neighborhood. That battle appears to have severely bloodied the combined iraqi and us forces, although there are not a lot of details.

They have increased operations outside of Baghdad, moving away from our force concentration and attacking us where we are weakest. Concurrently they appear to have increased shelling of the green zone to the point where everyone is now required to wear body armour at all times. This indicates that their ability to operate in Baghdad has not been hampered. Our death rate has basically doubled - as reported last week in the NYT.

The escalation, three months in, is a failure. As predicted, the insurgents have adapted and survived while our forces are now under even greater organizational pressure. This is the crisis that is now crashing down on the white house. They shunned the life saver tossed them by Bush Sr. and his Old Guard, went their own way, did their own thing, and it is not working at all.