Surge?

John McCain has been bashing Barack Obama for having opposed the "surge" in Iraq. Any progress that he made by playing the foreign policy card was undone over the weekend, and then some. Did you see the video of Obama's reception by the troops in Kuwait? Better than gold--platinum.

Now, I was thinking about McCain's assumption that the surge has worked. There are a lot of weaknesses in McCain's argument--the factors other than the relatively few additional American troops that could account for the decline in violence.

Turns out I may have been wasting my time. Juan Cole, who knows whereof he speaks, argues that there has been little improvement in the situation at all.