What will happen in September regarding BushCo policy in Iraq? Exactly nothing. Son of Surge will be unveiled as the talented General Petraeus requests time for yet another reconfigured, last-ditch effort to win the war. The war will continue, essentially limited by the maximum deployable resources of the US military. Petraeus has been given a counter-insurgency laboratory that affords him great professional satisfaction while giving BushCo perfect cover for extending the war until 2009. The diary explains how this happy marriage of career ambition and political deceit works.
Bush was clever in his general shopping. He chose Petraeus because Petraeus is fascinated by counter-insurgency doctrine. Like a physicist chasing an elusive particle or an inventor seeking a miraculous breakthrough, Petraeus wants to be the historic figure who solves the riddle of defeating insurgencies with a combination of superior force and intellect. Petraeus will never abandon this quest as long as BushCo gives him dollars and soldiers.
All Petraeus has to do is claim some kind of "progress" in September and point to the possibility of more improvement if he is given more time to tweak his strategy. Look for a new catch-phrase like "reconfiguration" or "new direction" or "fighting partnership" or "omnipresence" to provide the lexical equivalent of Laetrile for the next attempt at curing the insurgency.
Remember, it isn't Bush/Cheney/Rove's goal to win in Iraq; it is simply to make sure that a Democratic President is tagged with the defeat. This tees up the next Republican Presidency and the next petroleum war. Petraeus only needs to come up with two more sequels to the surge, because Bush is only three Friedmans away from the end of his term.
Bush will leave behind an America staggering under debt and hated by much of the world. Our Army will be run down and demoralized, and Iraq will be a failed state, with a million dead as a result of the US invasion and occupation. Mission accomplished.