Petraeus: we surge and Taliban do the same
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 12:05AM 
Pair of WSJ stories.
In the first, Petraeus says the uptick in Taliban violence is directly related to the uptick in engagement pursued by the US military in the surge--as in, we fight more and they reply. He also says that as the US military seeks to expand its "security bubbles," the fight will naturally grow as the White House conducts its policy review near the end of the year.
His focus now: tracking the size of the individual bubbles and looking for ways to cross-link them.
One good sign: fewer IEDs because those nets are under more stress from US operations.
Big difference with Iraq: the surge is not coinciding with a reduction in inter-ethnic strife but with an increase, primarily, the WSJ opines, because of Karzai's offer to negotiate with the Taliban (see my other post below).
Bottom line: Petraeus seems to be prepping the bureaucratic battlespace by reminding people that the surge doesn't equate to less violence in the short run but a whole lot more--part of the delicate dance he's pursuing with a White House eager to find early progress so as to justify the beginning of the drawdown slated for the summer of 2011.
As such, Petraeus doesn't need any additional triggers for violence in-country, hence his unusual intervention into the whole Quran-burning threat from Florida.
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