by Andrew Bard Schmookler,

A FUTILE AND IRRATIONAL COURSE

Let me start with my two premises:

First, I am assuming that the stories are true that Bush is going to call for an escalation of troop levels in Iraq, for the “surge” and “sacrifice” news about which news reports have spoken this week.

Second, I am assuming that there is no realistic chance that such a “surge” will accomplish anything of practical value, even assuming the Bushites’ goals as the standard of value. This assumption may or may not be true –it is, indeed, one of the matters that I believe the Democrats would be wise to hold hearings on, bringing in experts not in any way beholden to the administration– but I’m betting that this policy of escalation will be futile (and worse). As Keith Olbermann says in his most recent “Special Comment,” with this proposal Bush “has settled on the only solution all the true experts agree cannot possibly work…”

Given those premises, the question arises: Why, after the report of the Iraq Study Group and all this dramatized presidential pondering, is THIS foolish surge –this throwing of good money after bad, as the poker expression has it– the decision our self-proclaimed Decider has arrived at?