Has the “Surge” in Iraq Worked?

Has the “Surge” in Iraq Worked?

Immanuel Wallerstein writing for the Monthly Review:

I could go on—about Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, the Gulf states. The fact is that the United States is decidedly weaker everywhere in the Middle East in the eighteen months since the surge began. Has it not been in part, maybe in large part, precisely because of the surge? The Middle East today is like a large geopolitical balloon. If you squeeze it at one point, the air will simply displace itself to another point. And the balloon is getting more fragile all the time. It is on the verge of bursting.

(Via 3 Quarks Daily.)