The so-called Surge in Iraq is but an attempt to correct past blunders. Before we invaded, Iraq had a modern infrastructure and national security forces that were holding foreign terrorists and native criminals in check. But instead of taking out Saddam Hussein, declaring that in itself a victory and returning home with our prestige intact, we stayed on with the pretext of creating an American-style democracy and, in short order, proceeded to destroy the country’s infrastructure and dismantle its security forces. In the chaos that ensued, criminal gangs terrorized law-abiding citizens, foreign terrorists poured into the country and, joining ranks with them, former cops and soldiers of the dismantled security forces resurfaced as the “insurgents” that for four years waged guerilla war against us.
Now, after blowing billions bringing Iraq to ruin, we are now blowing even more billions rebuilding its infrastructure and bribing the same insurgents that killed and maimed thousands of our troops to fight on our side, with no guarantee that they will continue do so if we stop paying them off.
That was George Bush's Iraq war. The price tag for the destruction and chaos that the Obama administration will wreak on Afghanistan bodes to be far greater.