I'm flummoxed. I've spent most of the past five years analyzing, thinking about, writing about, and speaking about the Iraq conflict so I think I'm at least modestly conversant in it. But I just don't understand what the "new" strategy is or how it is "new."

I'm a regular reader of publications like the Weekly Standard. In fact, I just finished reading Tom Donnelly's essay in the most recent issue. Problem is, that one, like most there, spend all their time making the point that everyone who takes issue with the "new" strategy is an idiot or evil (or an evil idiot), but I have yet to see a cogent explanation of how the new strategy will lead to success.

The administration (except for Gates who seems to have the most nuanced view of Iraq) and the Weekly Standard crew (incuding Donnelly, Fred Kagan, and Bill Kristol) seem to feel there are only two options in Iraq: "victory" which means that the existing Shiite dominated government eradicates AQI, all the Sunni sectarian components of the insurgency give up and become compliant, and the Iranian backed Shiite militias go out of business. Or "defeat" which is everything else.

What I need is for someone to connect the dots for me and explain how the surge gets us toward that definition of "victory." The Weekly Standard crew likes to slam the "failed Casey-Abizaid strategy" which focused on ramping up Iraqi security forces to replace American ones but how, for the love of pete. is the "surge strategy" different? Assuming we won't sustain the surge for ever or ramp it up even further, what comes next if NOT exactly what Casey and Abizaid sought?

At an even deeper level, I question the core logic of the "surge strategy." To me (and I'll admit that I don't understand it and could be wrong), it is based on three assumptions: 1) secure areas can be kept secure; 2) eventually the whole country can be kept secure without a massive increase in American troops; and 3) the insurgents will simply lose their will and give up if they can't penetrate the secure areas (resulting in "victory").

Again, I just don't get it. How will the current surge lead the insurgent to give up? Someone help me!