Come on. You know better than this.
The reason the surge has been successful is partly because of the increase of our troops, who are superb, but also because Muqtada al-Sadr declared a truce, and because, as you said yourself to John McCain, the Sunnis decided they were better off working with the Americans. That is not an equasion for long-term success in Iraq.
That was Senator Kerry on Fox News Sunday. You can see that here at the 4:50 mark.
The truth of 90% of what you said pales in comparison because you perpetuated the false GOP narrative that "the surge has been successful."
Stop that!
The surge in troop count has seen a reduction in casualties overall. But we all know perfectly well that that wasn't why the Bush Administration promoted the surge. We did it, because, in the words of SecDef Gates over a year ago, "We’re basically buying them time. That’s the purpose of this whole strategy."
The surge happened to give the Iraqi government an opportunity in which they could make political advances and it has not happened. That the increase in troop levels reduced fatalities was both obvious and simply a precondition for success -- but success did not happen. And it was not until after the interim benchmark report came out in July 2007 that the administration, instead of admitting failure, just retroactively refocused on the minimal prerequisite step the surge stragegy had achieved.
The largest part of this, and one the media has sadly bought into is the idea that reduced casualties are not a step, but the proof that the surge is "successful," and no further discussion is needed. Fewer casualties are good, the surge made it happen, ergo the surge is successful. McCain, when pushed on this, flatly stated that he didn't care what anyone else thought, the surge was successful.
If the Democrats can't even take a stance on reality, how is the average voter going to help make the GOP take accountability for the newest in the line of failures in Iraq policy?