Iraq Assessment

I'll be a monkey's uncle.I seem to agree with you on a wide variety of subjects outside of evolution and creation.As for the surge, how do we know the majority of it is due to Sadr's withdraw of the Mahdi Army? Do we just wait and see what happens when the 30,000 additional troops leave? Seems kind of risky.My question is why didn't the US just make up some reason that would make AQ stay quiet for a while, such as a timed withdraw and simply just lie about it therefore using the time to bulk up the Iraqi army and take control as AQ lies dormant?

From what I heard of the arguments against a time table was that AQ would simply wait for the US to leave and then once we left, let all hell break loose. Therefore, couldn't we just say we were leaving on day X but lie and then use that time of peace to quickly solidify gains?What's the size of the JAMs compared to the Mahdi Army?

You can apply that argument to all of the groups.The claim against a time table was that the various terrorists groups would simply lay low and wait till we were gone. So my points is we should have taken them up on that claim, used the peaceful time to solidify power and then renege on our timetable claim.I agree the whole follow us home argument is crap as Iraq does nothing to prevent a homeland attack.

And where did you get that analysis from?