The surge or escalation of forces, unfortunately and fortunately, is only a bandaid on the damn.
The surges lasting effects are beginning to be seen. Do you see them when you watch the news? I bet you do and you just don't know it. I spent 14 months in Ramadi trying to make it a better place. I watched as good men and women lost their lives trying to improve the situation in Ramadi and Al Anbar. Good men like CPT Patriquin (RIP) the Brigade Civil Affairs Officer who created the plan on "How to Win in Al Anbar." This plan included the successful Awakening Council and clear and hold strategy that works, so long as we, Americans, hold the area. I have wathced through piecing together information from various news and information outlets since leaving Ramadi in March 2007, moving to Fort Hood, Texas, and redeploying, the situation deteriorate.
When we left in March 2007 we gave control to another Army Brigade that brigade has since moved on and been replaced by...the Iraqi army. In caase you can't tell by the number of increasing attacks and weapons caches being found in the Al Anbar Province. This only adds fuel to the pyre that is burning the idea of handing control of all of Iraq over to the army.
I remember being attacked within 50 meters of Iraqi Security Force checkpoints, within eyeshot of their concrete position. I remember ISF attacking convoys in Baghdad and trying to abduct the military personnel in those vehicles. This should be a tell-tell sign that the stand-up and stand-down strategy will only work if it happens all at once. We immediately sit down and the ISF immediately stands up.
I don't foresee this plan working, and I also don't foresee me staying in the Army past the obligation I made before this war started. I don't think the Army will last much longer under this strain. People say hang in there this can't last forever. The proponderance of the evidence seems to say otherwise.