The surge was an outstanding success. So says everyone, including John McCain and Barack Obama. Nonsense!

First, it wasn't a surge. American troops are still well above pre-surge levels. It was a long term increase in troop levels that will last into the next administration.[1] [2]

The agreed facts: Sectarian violence is down. Political integration in Iraq is virtually non-existent.

Second, there is another, better, explanation. However much we disliked Sadam Hussein, Iraqis - Christian, Sunni, and Shia - lived peacefully, many in relatively integrated communities. Today 100,000 Christians are gone and unaccounted for. Collateral damage in a war we started. Of the many integrated neighborhoods in Baghdad, most have been 'ethnically cleansed'. Those neighborhoods are now either Sunni or Shia. Four million Iraqis have been displaced. Perhaps a million killed. Iraq is more divided than ever.

Anbar province, the location of some of the greatest violence, is quiet because we've returned control to the Sunni tribes. Now armed (again) they are unlikely to ever submit to the rule of the central Shia dominated government.

The Kurds in the north have been self-governing for some time. Peaceful within their territory for now, but ready to defend there claim to some oil rich land near their southern border. They will not yield on the subject of oil revenue.

The success of Iraqi 'ethnic cleansing' and a return to local control, explains both the reduction in sectarian violence and the lack of political reconciliation.

What's next? The promise of an end to the violence has been greatly exaggerated before - by the Dick Cheney 3 years ago (2005)[3] and the well remembered 'Mission Accomplished' 5 years ago (2003).

Ethnic cleansing in a neighborhood or any place where the minority population is small takes only a gang of thugs. That job is pretty well done. The animosity remains. So does the propensity to violence. A gang of thugs must become an army to continue on a larger scale. Moqtada Al Sadr's Mahdi army waits quietly in the wings. As long as US forces remain, neighborhoods and regions can be expected to be satisfied with local self-governance. When we leave, whether now or decades from now, the armies will emerge. This is an anger that has persisted for centuries. It will not end because America doesn't like it. It takes an iron fist, whether it belongs to Sadam Hussein or the United States.

Are you ready to keep 140,000 American sons and daughters in Iraq that long?