The insurgency is not fizzling?

Just a few weeks after US military officials optimistically predicted that the Iraq insurgency was 'fizzling' because the number of attacks per day was down, many of those same officials now believe they were wrong, and that the insurgency is strengthing again.

The Boston Globe reported Sunday that US military officials now believe that the greater coordination and sophistocation of attacks demonstrated by insurgents in recent weeks means they have changed their tactics, rather than disappeared or given up.

  Christian Science Monitor article

By now, you'd think the "experts" would assume that's what happens every time they think the "insurgency is fizzling."

More troublesome is that these same military experts also believe that the insurgents "are making inroads toward sparking a full-blown sectarian war," and that it may not be possible for the US to reduce its troop strength as quickly as some recent Defense Department statements have indicated.

Wow. What a surprise.

The inability of the US army to secure the seven-mile road between Baghdad and the airport, also the site of the main US military base, has become a symbol of the failure of the US in Iraq. Heavily armored US patrols, prone to open fire unpredictably, are regarded as being as dangerous as the insurgents.

[...]

The Washington Post reports that many of the attacks have gone unchallenged by the Iraqi forces, particularly in areas of the country largely controlled by insurgents. US officials are also privately saying that "violence is getting much worse."

"The problem isn't the equipment," [Rwandan General] Kagame told me. "The problem is always the man behind it. Does he understand why he is fighting?" In his view, determined and well-disciplined fighters, motivated by coherent ideas of political improvement, can always best the soldiers of a corrupt regime that stands for nothing but its own power.

-- Paul Gourevitch, We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, p. 218

And, by the way, the new Iraqi government is not off to a smooth start. What a surprise.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.