Illusion?

Con Hallinan at Foreign Policy in Focus argues that the surge is an illusion. He attributes much of the comparative silence in Iraq to a combination of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad and a decision by the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to bide their time while we support them with weapons and money. He does make a strong case.

He concludes with an appropriate quote from Patrick Cockburn of The Independent, "Nothing is resolved in Iraq. Power is wholly fragmented. The Americans will discover, as the British learned to their cost in Basra, that they have few permanent allies in Iraq. It has become a land of warlords in which fragile ceasefires might last for months and might equally collapse tomorrow."