# What If the Surge Had Not Happened **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 21, 2011, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317 "2011-10-21T00:56:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/21 "2011-10-21T04:09:58Z")
Bush gets no credit in my book for The Surge being his successful policy. It worked because General Petreus took what really needed to be done (counterinsurgency) and packaged it in terms Bush could understand (more troops). ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/22 "2011-10-21T04:17:51Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Because that’s exactly what he and the vast majority of Democrats advocated by 2006. But they’re liars. Kerry voted for the AUMF along with the rest of them. At most he would’ve refocused on Afghanistan like Obama. It’s not OK to rob the bank if you get away. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/23 "2011-10-21T05:51:55Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I agree the Iraq War was probably a mistake based on faulty intelligence and miscalculation but not an intentional war out of evil reasons. Wrong on all counts. The only “faulty intelligence” was that of the Neo-Cons who were so in love with Wolfowitz’s idiotic term paper that they were willing to lie to the American public, ignore the express concerns of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, allow themselves to be led by the nose by a thieving banker who was backed by Iran, and hire a bunch of advertising flacks as pretend “intelligence analysts” to massage intelligence reports by cherry-picking only the stuff that made them feel good while ignoring the actual intelligence agencies that disagreed with them. There were never WMDs. Months before the invasion we already knew there would be no WMDs. (The Bush administration demonstrated that they knew there were no WMDs when they sent the troops in with no units assigned to look for WMDs and with battle plans that ignored the purported sites of WMDs claimed by the administration.) It was an intentional war, motivated by and carried out through lies, to carry out the pipe dream of some seriously foolish people who wanted to impose their will on a bunch of foreigners with oil. That is evil. > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I agree. I’m using the Surge to mean not just the Surge itself but in general America fighting on in Iraq. > > Which would not have happened if US troops had not been deployed. Then you should have said “continuing U.S. involvement” rather than picking out one flawed strategy. Despite your claim, Kerry would no more have simply pulled out of Iraq than Bush did or Obama has done, so your premise is false from the get go. As to the U.S. being in Iraq, I would agree that we had a responsibility to try to minimize further casualties, but only because we were responsible for the huge number of casualties, to begin with. I don’t heap praise on a kid for wiping up the spilled milk when he was the one who knocked the cup on the floor while trying to smack his sister with a spoon. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/24 "2011-10-21T06:28:25Z")
Seriously, what’s with the “surge” love in the US. I remember in 2005, a British general saying on BBC that the US needed to increase troop levels. I thought that flooding a place with troops is pretty much standard counter insurgency, which Rumsfeld and Casey refused to do mainly because they refused to believe it was an insurgency. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/25 "2011-10-21T08:41:31Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > In addition a defeat in Iraq would give us another Vietnam syndrome after the first one had been cured by Grenada and Desert Storm. Nice to know that the Iraqis paid with their lives the baby bruised ego of America. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/26 "2011-10-21T12:40:51Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Same case in Japan, Germany, and Korea. Are you really under the impression that we’ve garrisoned those countries for decades to prevent internal revolts there? Have you not yet learned in school what the Cold War was? :dubious: > [@BobLibDem](#): > > You’re too quick to give credit to The Holy Surge. The Sunni Awakening had a whole lot more to do with Iraq becoming somewhat more stable than Bush could ever be responsible for. That, and our policy of facilitating rather than suppressing ethnic cleansing in what became the effective partitioning of the country. Part of that was simple payoffs. Gotta feel some sympathy for Petraeus, having to pretend that wasn’t happening while catering to Bush’s desire to appear ballsy. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/27 "2011-10-21T13:07:47Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Nice to know that the Iraqis paid with their lives the baby bruised ego of America. Well, they’re heathen foreigners and so aren’t _really_ human. Their lives don’t actually count. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/28 "2011-10-21T13:33:32Z")
I’m enjoying this topic. I don’t have a lot to add, but Frank, you are kicking ass in this thread. Kudos. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/29 "2011-10-21T13:35:38Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Despite the success of President George W Bush’s Surge strategy in Iraq… Very specifically, what do you believe the exact goals of the surge strategy were? ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/30 "2011-10-21T13:55:15Z")
**Qin** , can you explain to me exactly what America got out of the invasion of Iraq? Before we can determine if the whole endeavor was a success, can you please explain in concrete terms what success is supposed to look like in Iraq? ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/31 "2011-10-21T18:34:42Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > You’re too quick to give credit to The Holy Surge. The Sunni Awakening had a whole lot more to do with Iraq becoming somewhat more stable than Bush could ever be responsible for. I’m sorry but how about the political will of Nouri Al Maliki to stomp down the Sadr militia which was entrenched in ‘Sadr city’ part of Baghdad? A large part of the surge success came from good intelligence gathering, literally buying off and co-opting Sunni insurgents to go against Al Qaeda, and the political will of the Shia ruling class to suppress and overwhelm the Sadr populist movement. People mistake the surge in purely military terms, the surge was a multilateral effort on all fronts to bring stability, which is what proper counter insurgency is supposed to do in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/32 "2011-10-21T19:34:47Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Seriously, what’s with the “surge” love in the US. I remember in 2005, a British general saying on BBC that the US needed to increase troop levels. I thought that flooding a place with troops is pretty much standard counter insurgency, which Rumsfeld and Casey refused to do mainly because they refused to believe it was an insurgency. I’ve never understood this perception of the surge being\* the \*significant factor. What changed was the militias relationship with Al-Qaeda - in particular Al-Qaeda beginning to reveal their fundamentalism in relation to Iraqis. This gave the US an entre - the US bought the militias and turned them against Al-Qaeda in Iraq. That had nothing - nothing - to do with GWB. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/33 "2011-10-21T19:52:46Z")
Too bad Halberstam didn’t live long enough to write a book about the Bush Administration. He had the perfect title on tap. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2011, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/34 "2011-10-22T00:21:47Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Despite the success of President George W Bush’s Surge strategy in Iraq, those of the “progressive” persuasion are still reluctant to recognize it and give due credit to the former President. Even if the surge was entirely responsible for peace and freedom forever, which I very much doubt, why should anyone get “credit” for solving a problem of his own creation by throwing away vast amounts of other people’s money and lives, in one failed attempt after another, until something finally worked? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2011, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/35 "2011-10-22T01:54:39Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > heh. Some 50,000 troops remained in Iraq following that “withdrawal” in an “advisory” capacity. (Speaking of Vietnam.) > > I would hardly term a government that needed eight months following the elections to be agreed upon to be “firmly” in place. > > Where do you get this shit from? ``` There are more than 50,000 contractors there too. ``` ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2011, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/36 "2011-10-22T07:35:23Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > So what if the Surge had not happened? When I see a cop I slow down, I put on my seat belt, I follow the law. The more cops I see, the more times that happens. Soon, I do it without having to see a cop. That’s the idea. So yea it worked, of course. Did we train enough cops/fake out enough citizens to sustain it (seems like it, but I don’t follow Iraq much). We’ll see. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2011, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/37 "2011-10-22T11:39:37Z")
I agree with the OP in that I don’t believe that Bush is evil and that he lied in order to get us into war. That being said, by believing the faulty intelligence that lead to thousands of American deaths for pretty much nothing puts him on the idiot list in my book. And assuming that the Surge worked exactly as planned, he doesn’t get credit for correcting his screwup. I’m not a hero if I put out a house fire that I started because I passed out drunk with a cigarette in hand. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/38 "2011-10-22T18:15:34Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > You’ve convinced me. > > Again, I bow before your superior knowledge. > > Your man Bush got hundreds of thousands killed and destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands more. That’s far more important than you not liking lines on a map. Most of the deaths were caused by the various militias and terrorists not by American soldiers. And more people would have died had Iraq balkanized > [@](#): > > No. Basically, no good came of your man Bush’s foreign policy. I’m not going to credit him for any damage control when he was responsible for the damage in the first place. That would be silly. > [@Twoflower](#): > > Bush gets no credit in my book for The Surge being his successful policy. It worked because General Petreus took what really needed to be done (counterinsurgency) and packaged it in terms Bush could understand (more troops). And the Democrats and antiwar wanted to just pull out not implement counterinsurgency tactics. > [@marshmallow](#): > > But they’re liars. Kerry voted for the AUMF along with the rest of them. At most he would’ve refocused on Afghanistan like Obama. > > It’s not OK to rob the bank if you get away. Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and a whole bunch of other Democrats and Republicans flip-flopped in the course of 2005 and '06. Simply put, why would Kerry want to fight on in an unpopular war if pulling out would boost his popularity? > [@AK84](#): > > Seriously, what’s with the “surge” love in the US. I remember in 2005, a British general saying on BBC that the US needed to increase troop levels. I thought that flooding a place with troops is pretty much standard counter insurgency, which Rumsfeld and Casey refused to do mainly because they refused to believe it was an insurgency. And I agree that was a grave mistake. > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Are you really under the impression that we’ve garrisoned those countries for decades to prevent internal revolts there? Have you not yet learned in school what the Cold War was? :dubious: I know, however in the first decade or so at least the presence of American soldiers did help democratize Germany and Japan and the presence of American troops in Korea like those in Iraq was to protect its government and maintain stability. The difference is that Iraq’s problems were internal. > [@Ravenman](#): > > Very specifically, what do you believe the exact goals of the surge strategy were? To bring stability to Iraq/ > [@madmonk28](#): > > **Qin** , can you explain to me exactly what America got out of the invasion of Iraq? Before we can determine if the whole endeavor was a success, can you please explain in concrete terms what success is supposed to look like in Iraq? Well originally the Iraq invasion was to remove WMDs and/or prevent their construction but since there were no WMDs, our main goal was to make sure Iraq was a free and stable country. This goal has mostly succeedeed and an anti-American dictator who posed a threat to American interests is gone/ ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2011, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/39 "2011-10-22T19:04:35Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > To bring stability to Iraq/ if only. Bush said the surge’s main goal was to provide the “breathing space” to stabilize Iraq’s government, not just the streets. There is no evidence that this goal has succeeded. In fact, at least one conservative is willing to look at what Bush promised the surge would do, and what has been achieved… and he come away very critical. [http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/2010/04/06/by-its-own-standards-the-surge-failed/](http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/2010/04/06/by-its-own-standards-the-surge-failed/) ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2011, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317/40 "2011-10-22T19:47:23Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > This goal has mostly succeedeed and an anti-American dictator who posed a threat to American interests is gone/ At a cost of $800 billion and 4400 American lives. Was it worth it? Should we spend the same blood and treasure next time a a dictator makes empty threats against us? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-surge-had-not-happened/600317.md?page=3)