Is The Surge Working?: Biden vs. Graham.

A Lebanese historian once cautioned that “great powers should never get caught up in the politics of local tribes.” That’s a pretty accurate assessment, unfortunately, of why America’s intervention in Iraq has gone so wrong. The United States is spending $10 billion dollars a month in Iraq and it is now losing an average of sixty soldiers a month. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham believes this sacrifice is worth it because he foresees the prospect of a political reconciliation within the next couple of months. Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, on the other hand, argues that America will be forced to evacuate Baghdad with the next couple of years, and that our departure will resemble the fall of Saigon unless we dramatically alter our approach in Iraq. Given that the bitter Sunni-Shia schism that has existed for centuries and the fact that implanting democracy takes generations, it seems Pollyannaish in the extreme to expect that Iraq’s factions will reach any kind of political settlement in the foreseeable future.

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