Bill Kristol today on Fox News Sunday:

“Yeah, doubling the U.S. troop presence in Baghdad can make a big difference. Look, if I were a Sunni extremist and was worried, which I would be, about a doubling of U.S. forces in Baghdad, what would I do? I would try to convey an impression of chaos. I would get the biggest truck bomb possible and drive it into a market in a Shiite area. If that’s going to drive us out of Iraq, that’s just ridiculous.

That would just send a message to any place we have interests, all the most ruthless group of terrorists has to do is kill a bunch of civilians and we’re going to leave. There’s no evidence they can stand up to U.S. troops and quite a bit of evidence that they’re worried. On the whole over the last two weeks, some of the news for Iraq is slightly optimistic. It’s going to be tough, but I see nothing that persuades me that the surge can’t work quite well.”

So by that logic you just told the insurgents the best way to get rid of the U.S. inva–occupation. Take a break, they’ll think you turned tail and then then as soon as they pull out rise up and take over. Brilliant! It is really interesting to watch the new and creative ways that neo-cons can turn any amount of violence and mayhem in Iraq into an optimistic positive that shows we are “winning the war on terror.” Again, by Kristol’s logic then if the violence subsides, does that mean we’re losing?