John McCain takes credit for it. Lou Dobbs, red faced and finger pointing, insists on it. Blowhards and windbags of every political stripe repeat it at every opportunity. Even the usually clear-eyed and skeptical Gail Collins mindlessly repeats it in today’s column: the so-called "surge" is working in Iraq. The only problem with this comfortable meme? It’s a lie.
In fact it’s a lie within a lie. Sending additional troops to Iraq wasn’t a brilliant change in tactics on the part of Bush Defense. The extra troops merely brought overall troop numbers back to earlier levels. Far from a change in tactics, the "surge" was a return to the previous failed scheme.
Furthermore any lessening of violence in Iraq has little to do with U.S. troop levels. Shiites stopped killing at their prior pace when Moktada al Sadr declared a cease fire and took his troops off the streets. At the same time the Iranians appear to have slowed their shipments of munitions to their Shia brethren across the border. Meanwhile we’ve been bribing Sunni militiamen with weapons and money, gaining a temporary stand-down from them in exchange.
But why let facts get in the way of a useful fable? The "surge" may not have done much to stem the bloodshed in Iraq, but the myth of the surge’s effect is doing Bush, McCain, and their imbecilic mouthpieces a power of good.