Preview of Coming Attractions

A surge without a strategy is just moving chess pieces around on the board and temporarily keeping certain kinds of violence (sorta) down.

It's clusterf--k gang on gang warfare. US Army is just a really big gang in this fight sad to say.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com For the past four years, the administration's narrative of the Iraq war has centered on al-Qaeda, Iran and the sectarian violence they have promoted. But in the homogenous south -- where there are virtually no U.S. troops or al-Qaeda fighters, few Sunnis, and by most accounts limited influence by Iran -- Shiite militias fight one another as well as British troops. A British strategy launched last fall to reclaim Basra neighborhoods from violent actors -- similar to the current U.S. strategy in Baghdad -- brought no lasting success.