The "surge" isn't going so well... The Iran War should help the administration's self-esteem.

An uncooperative Iraqi government

America has been huddling with Iraqi officials over Bush's "surge" thing for days trying to make it work, and they're in trouble.  John Burns' article for tomorrow's New York Times pulls no punches.

The signs so far have unnerved some Americans working on the plan, who have described a web of problems, ranging from a contested chain of command to issues of how to protect American troops deployed in some of Baghdad’s most dangerous districts, that some fear could hobble the effort before it begins.

The pitiable US military officials charged with carrying out Bush's plan are finding that reality is quite different from the Commander-in-Chief's fantasy.  The al-Maliki government is balky and uncooperative.  The problems are many.

First among these is a Shiite-led government that has been so dogmatic in its attitude that the Americans worry that they will be frustrated in their aim of cracking down equally on Shiite and Sunni extremists, a strategy that President Bush has declared central to the plan. 

“We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem,” said an American military official in Baghdad closely involved in negotiations over the plan, expressing frustration. “We are being played like a pawn.”

More -- much more -- profit for Bush-friendly contractors

Burns refers to an article in the same paper by James Glanz which illustrates how the profit motive enters into the administration calculations for reconstructions teams.  The security alone -- enumerated by the Bush administration -- will be extremely costly.

Some of the projected costs may raise eyebrows. Around the country, for example, the United States plans to spend more than $2 million in office furnishings alone as part of the plan. More than $7 million is budgeted for information technology, apparently including computers. Some of that money may be used to support existing team members. The new plans could become a windfall for more than computer and furniture companies. The document’s last page gives a hint of the likely financing requests in support of the teams in fiscal year 2008, suggesting that protection alone may require $400 million.

The Texas Strategy, or how the "surge" resembles the savings and loan disaster

Paul Krugman, in the same edition, questions the use of the phrase "hail Mary pass."

That’s the wrong metaphor. Mr. Bush isn’t Roger Staubach, trying to pull out a win for the Dallas Cowboys. He’s Charles Keating, using other people’s money to keep Lincoln Savings going long after it should have been shut down — and squandering the life savings of thousands of investors, not to mention billions in taxpayer dollars, along the way.

The parallel is actually quite exact. During the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s, people like Mr. Keating kept failed banks going by faking financial success. Mr. Bush has kept a failed war going by faking military success. The “surge” is just another stalling tactic, designed to buy more time.

Oh, and one of the favorite techniques used by the owners of savings and loan associations to generate phony profits — it involved making high-interest loans to crooked or flaky real estate developers — came to be known as the “Texas strategy.”

"This is a way to get into a spiral with Iran that leads to conflict."

Finally -- also in tomorrow's paper -- David Sanger lays Cheney's Iran deception on the table, in full view.

Over the past three weeks, in two sets of raids and newly revealed orders issued by President Bush, a third front has opened — against Iran. Administration officials say the goal is limited to preventing Iranians from aiding in attacks on American and Iraqi forces inside Iraq. But in recent interviews and public statements, senior members of the Bush administration have made it clear that their agenda goes significantly further, toward foiling Iran’s dream of emerging as the greatest power in the Middle East.

...Despite the urging of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group to engage with Iran, Washington is moving in a more confrontational direction. It is stationing more naval, air and antimissile batteries off Iran’s coast; has persuaded many international businesses to cut off dealings with Iran; and it has interfered with Iranians inside Iraqi territory.

“The administration does have Iran on the brain, and I think they are exaggerating the amount of Iranian activities in Iraq,” Kenneth M. Pollack, the director of research at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, said Sunday. “There’s a good chance that this is going to be counterproductive — that this is a way to get into a spiral with Iran that leads you into conflict...."