<p>The anbar awakening could not have happened if the sunni Sheiks who rebelled were not protected by US troops. </p>
<p>The surge is a misnomer. What really happened was the military changed strategy from “attack and leave”… allowing insurgents to return; to “clear and hold the population centers”. </p>
<p>The additional US troops [they had been transferred from other “less violent” parts of Iraq] sent to some major cities in Anbar in 2006 & 2007 tried this counter insurgency strategy and it started working.</p>
<p>In the fall of 2007, upon seeing the success of the counter insurgency strategy of protecting Iraqi civilians, the Bush administration decided to try a similar strategy in Bagdad and broaden it in Anbar. But the US didn’t have enough troops to hold all the “cleared” territory to protect Iraqi civilians. Thats where the so called “surge” troops come in. </p>
<p>While the US helped hold the territory cleared of insurgents, Iraqi armed forces continued to be trained. More than 35,000 additional Iraqi troops have been trained in the last year, allowing the Iraqi troops to replace the US “surge” troops.</p>
<p>Obama just can’t admit he was wrong about the surge. He said it would fail. It would encourage additional violence because of the presence of US troops. </p>
<p>In fact Iraqi and US deaths are down almost 90% from peak surge levels. </p>
<p>Obama said communal conflict would rage in Bagdad and Anbar, the focus of the “surge”. In fact there are almost NO interethnic killings in those two areas currently </p>
<p>Big showy bombings are carried out by Al Quaidi remnants and communal conflict continues in those areas where the new counter insurgency has fully taken affect. </p>
<p>Obama has shown poor judgement in Iraq since 2002 when he opposed the war. </p>
<p>In 2003, Obama said he position was similar to President Bushes. Obama did NOT forsee the insurgency. And Obama said the “Surge” would fail. </p>
<p>If we had followed Obamas stragey in 2007, all US troops would have left in March 2008. Iraq was heading towards civil war before the surge. </p>
<p>If full scale civil war had broken out, Iran would have backed the Shiites, Saud Arabia, Jordan etc backed the Sunnis, and Turkey would have been fighting the Kurds, where there is a large restive Kurdish minority. </p>
<p>Hundreds of thousands of civilians would have been killed in the continuance of ethnic cleansing as each ethnic group tried to create borders for its enclave to its liking. </p>
<p>It was a recipe for regional conflict, in a region that supplies most of the worlds oil.</p>
<p>If regional war broke out, rather than $4 per gallon gasoline caused by demand in China & India, we would have seen $12 per gallon gasoline and possibly a depression caused to oil import bills the world couldn’t afford. </p>
<p>The US and the west probably would have send troops back into the region again to prevent disaster. </p>
<p>By the way McCain, was advocating the type of counter insurgency strategy we used in 2004 & 2005. </p>
<p>McCain fought the Bush administration and Rumsfeld and said their policies of “clearing and leaving” was a disaster. Civilians were turning to militias to protect them, because the US wouldn’t protect them, and the Iraq military didn’t have the capabilities at that time. </p>
<p>The most tragic part of Obama evens says in “retrospect” the he would not NOW support the surge. </p>
<p>We don’t need a president would can’t recognize the truth when it is staring him in the face.</p>