With George Bush expected to send more troops to Iraq - 20,000 is the figure most often mentioned - debate rages on whether the increase will make much difference.
Edit Copy is highly sceptical. First he knocks down the notion that the increase is a "surge".
"This is a gradual increase in combat power over the next few months, brigade by brigade. The connotation of a surge is a massive increase in numbers in a short period of time... This is what the so-called surge will look like: battalions of marines held for additional months, brigades of the army moved into place a little more quickly than originally planned."
He argues that the absence of political compromise between the Sunnis and Shias has brought us to this point and concludes: "It is hard to imagine how a compromise can develop in 2007, or how this small 'surge' will substantial alter that important fact."
Several bloggers pick up a point made by Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois, who argues that Bush requires congressional authorisation for a troop increase.
"Failure to obtain additional authorisation from Congress for this substantial enlargement of US armed forces in Iraq would constitute an impeachable offence under the terms of the United States constitution for violating the constitution's war powers clause and Congress's own war powers resolution."
Iowa Voice is not so much preoccupied by legal niceties as by the failure of the Iraqis to get their own house in order, which seems a tad harsh as the US did much to create the present mess.
"I'm not in favour of a troop surge, and it's about time for the administration to tell the Iraqis to s!#t or get off the pot. 2007 is the end of the line as far as all reality goes. Whether it's the Democrats that force the withdrawal or the president who decides that it's just not working out, I don't see how we stay there another year."
For a more thoughtful discussion of the complexities of Iraq's political situation, including the strength of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada a-Sadr, read this excellent review article in the New York Review of Books by Christian Caryl.
