Today’s big talking point is that Barack Obama should apologize for not supporting the surge and then acknowledge that it worked. The media is big on pushing the false meme that thanks to the surge violence in Iraq is down. This is simply not true. One may be able to claim it helped in part to reduce violence but it is in no way shape or form the sole reason why violence in Iraq has dropped.

The major reason why violence in Iraq has dropped is because Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army to stand down. There is a direct correlation between the time when al-Sadr ordered the cease fire and when violence began to decrease in Iraq. The surge, coincidentally, only started ‘having an effect’ after the Mahdi Army stand down. Bush started surging troops into Iraq of Dec '06 just after the Democrats took Congress. More troops were sent in March '07 and June of '07 as well as July '07. Violence didn't start to drop until Sept '07 after al-Sadr ordered the Mahdi Army to stand down.

Everyone in the media and in Iraq knows this. When military commanders are pressed on how the surge exactly worked most will openly admit that a large part of the success in reducing violence is in fact because the Mahdi Army stood down. The other part of the equation is because we started paying Sunnis not to attack U.S. troops.

I’m not sure why the media insists on pushing the claim that the surge has worked. They know it’s a half truth at best. They also seem hell bent on McCain getting credit for the surge and therefore by proxy getting credit for ‘winning’ the occupation of Iraq. Again if it wasn’t for al-Sadr the surge would be a blatant failure. We’d be sending more troops to Iraq instead of talking about redeploying them to Afghanistan.

I love watching the media try to force Obama to comply with their demands. It’s amusing watching the pundits try to dictate policy and political strategy to Obama.

Obama should not apologize or cave in to their demands. What he should state firmly is that while the surge played a small role in reducing violence the overwhelming reason why violence in Iraq dropped was because the Mahdi Army stood down and because Iraqis started taking control over their own security.

McCain is really turning into a pathetic joke. The problem is the media seems content to push his false image and not call him on his lies, distortions, half truths, and flip flops. Fortunately most Americans pay little if any attention to the media.