Turkeys in Iraq

So here's the answer to why the "surge" wasn't a good idea. It's stated purpose was to give the Iraqi government breathing room to make progress on the "benchmarks". The flaw in the "surge" strategy/PR campaign was that the Iraqi government was and is an ineffectual mess that isn't capable of coming together to accomplishing anything.

Maliki's public feud with Sunni official highlights Iraq's divisions

By Bobby Caina Calvan - McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thursday, November 22, 2007

BAGHDAD — The sniping is incessant, the skirmishes bruising. For months, the verbal warfare between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, and his Sunni vice-president, Tariq al-Hashemi, has been escalating.

Now Iraqi politicians and American diplomats and analysts fear that the very public feuding between two of Iraq's most influential leaders will doom even the minimal hopes that exist for progress on a host of key benchmarks — such as holding provincial elections and equitably sharing oil revenues. ...

.... Despite a dramatic decline in violence, there's been no sign of reconciliation among Iraq's leaders and no progress on many key issues, according to U.S. and Iraqi assessments. Without progress, the open warfare between Iraq's many factions that seems to have eased in recent weeks, is likely to resurge, once the United States begins reducing the number troops in Iraq. ...