The Surge is Working! Whatever that means.

John McCain seems extremely proud of his position on Iraq. In particular, he is hoping to capitalize on the "success" of the surge. He describes this as saving American lives, which is the most important thing that any policy change in Iraq could achieve.

This seems a little odd, because the greatest number of lives could be saved if we simply packed everyone into military transports and got them out. We presumably have a mission and in warfare, achieving the mission is generally more important than minimizing casualties. Perhaps the problem is that no one can enunciate a mission anymore, at least one that is plausible enough not to provoke snickers.

My personal crystal ball for Iraq is very cloudy right now, but I'm getting ready for one of my outbursts of relative optimism. In the past, I've soon regretted them, but the law of averages says that sooner or later, I'll be right.

My relative optimism is based on the fact that at $100/barrel, there's enough wealth in Iraq's oil reserves to make every corrupt politician in the country rich. Not every Iraqi, but every politician ("corrupt" is redundant). And it may sooner or later occur to them, as a class, that the only obstacle to being rich is being dead, and some accommodation should be reached. I view the Sunni rejection of al-Qaeda as being in this vein. The jihadists don't want compromise, and we may have passed the point where the Sunnis view their alliance with them as productive, even as a counterbalance to the Shiites and Americans.

From this understanding there might emerge an Iraq comparable to Saudi Arabia. Wealthy enough to make the guys at the top stinking rich and keep the guys at the bottom from starving. Except for a different combination of politicians, not that much different from where we started. There weren't any WMDs and at the outset, there weren't any terrorists. There also was no democracy and few human rights.

But right now, my optimistic view is that we'll end up, a trillion dollars poorer, with the status quo ante. If McCain seriously has a more attractive outcome in mind, I'd like to hear him. If not, it's not a really strong position from which to run for President.