Is the Iraq "surge" working or failing?

It is completely unclear whether the "surge" in Iraq may actually be doing at least a little bit of good, or whether it is a complete failure. To be sure, there is still plenty of chaos, but some of that was inevitable, and it is not clear if the troops are really all in place and actually executing on their "surge" plans.

My own belief is that the "surge" is simply completely irrelevant. It ultimately cannot succeed if Iraq's leaders don't get their act together, and the getting of their act together is in no way dependent on the presence of U.S. troops.

The real bottom line is that I don't sense that Iraq is much worse than a month ago. Not that it is clearly better than a month ago, but at least Iraq's leaders are grinding through the process of evolving towards a consensus about how the country will be led.

-- Jack Krupansky