The surge wasn't implemented earlier because it was already known to be unsustainable. To go in with the force the generals requested would have been impossible without restructuring the armed forces, instituting a draft, and acquiring substantial funding increases. It would also have required time to implement. The adventure in Iraq was always a throw of the dice, a gamble that the war would be over, our puppet state established, and the bulk of the army home within a year. The judgement was made because it was known that Saddam's military was a pushover, he had no friends in the region, and that his people were ready to see him go.

A surge was not tried later for the same reasons, it simply would have crippled the armed forces, the military equivalent of eating the seed corn, drinking the pump-priming water. Years went by when the American people and congress could have been consulted for additional resources to do the job right, but it would have been considered a loss of face for the administration. Or perhaps they deluded themselves into constantly seeing victory just around the corner, like their partisans here have. As the war dragged on, the hope simply persisted that we would get lucky, somehow, or that our opponents would just tire out before we did. Again, it was a gamble; a throw of the dice.

The surge was finally implemented as a desparate effort to turn the war around when it became obvious that the American public, manifesting themselves by the 2006 elections, indicated the status quo was intolerable. The military is now cannibalizing itself, consuming its resources faster than they can be replaced, and committing forces which are ill-equipped and improperly trained or exhasted in the hope the enemy will collapse before we do--or that the 2008 elections will intervene and the problem can be handed off to the next administration. It is like a runner starting his "kick" too soon in the hope the race leaders will be discouraged and drop out. It is a race between the clock and the combat readiness of the armed forces. The dice have been thrown a third time, and I fear they are coming up snake-eyes again.

There is one more throw of the dice, one more gamble the risk-managers at the White House are not getting ready for, and not telling us about. They are gambling that sometime during the next few years that it will take to extract ourselves from this conflict and rebuild the armed forces that those forces are not desperately needed somewhere else.