A surge in time.(AT WAR)(more US troops will be sent to Iraq)

AS we went to press, President Bush was on the verge of announcing a "surge" of new troops into Baghdad. The idea is to devote enough troops to clear and then hold neighborhoods in the capital city. Our recent failed Baghdad security plan, Operation Together Forward, had American troops clearing neighborhoods and then leaving them to inadequate Iraqi forces, at which point they tended to revert back to lawlessness. The operation was nearly pointless, and Baghdad became more violent during its conduct.

The surge results from Bush's thorough reevaluation of his Iraq policy. Even before the midterm elections, he had (belatedly) begun to realize that our approach was not working. He fired defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, an architect of the "light footprint" strategy that sought to minimize our presence on the ground and emphasize training the Iraqis. Reasonable enough in theory, the strategy amounted to standing aside as Iraq's violence mutated into a civil war that risks destroying any political progress in the country and tearing apart the security forces that we have been training. Bush also pushed toward the exits the two generals who shared Rumsfeld's belief in the light footprint, CENTCOM commander John Abizaid and his deputy in Iraq, Gen. George Casey. When Rumsfeld and Bush used to say that they weren't sending more troops to Iraq because the generals weren't asking for them, they were--unfortunately--telling the truth.

Bush is replacing Casey with Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who got high marks in his previous tours in Iraq and had a large hand in writing the Army's new counterinsurgency manual. Generally considered one of the most talented generals in the Army, Petraeus has dissented from the light-footprint strategy and supports the surge. Bush has finally taken an approach more appropriate to his role as commander-in-chief--not mindlessly deferring to his generals, but picking ones who support his strategy and are committed to carrying it out.

The point of the surge is to provide enough security in Baghdad that the furies of revenge and hatred don't spin utterly out of control. Violence has radicalized Iraq, with cleric-thug Moqtada al-Sadr gaining ground as the civil war intensifies. So long as the sectarian violence continues unchecked, his power and influence will only increase, and Iraq will head toward a gruesome breakup in which Iran will likely effectively control the Shiite portion of Iraq and Sunni radicals their own rump--if, that is, Sunnis aren't cleansed from the country entirely. Neighboring countries might pick away at Iraq's carcass, U.S. prestige would plummet, and Iran and Saudi Arabia would again compete for strategic influence in the region by promoting their rival but equally noxious radicalisms.

It might still be possible to forestall this outcome, although it looks more difficult by the hour. We suspect many opponents of the surge simply believe the Iraq War is unwinnable. That is not an unreasonable position, but it is one they should declare openly rather than pretending that the status quo or the beginning of a drawdown is going to improve ...