In the know? The St. Petersburg Times on Scott Beauchamp, with segue to the surge

Nothing at all yet, if the Times' search function is working with anything like minimal efficiency.

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Just to see what else I would know thanks to the Times, I searched for "surge working."
I got this from 2006 (along with various hits having nothing to do with Iraq):

So much for the long-awaited Iraq Study Group's report on the "way forward" in Iraq. It made headlines but not much of an impression on President Bush, who has suggested that some of the bipartisan panel's key recommendations were "ideas for defeat." Bush plans to speak to the nation in January on his next move in Iraq after consulting with military leaders and his own national security team. We should be worried, especially with the news that Bush has begun imagining parallels between his wartime leadership and Harry Truman's.

Some of us assumed the debate in Washington by now would be on the study group's call for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces in early 2008. But instead of debating how to get out of Iraq, we're considering whether to get in even deeper with a "surge" of additional troops, as if that is likely to change the outcome.

(St. Petersburg Times)

Philip Gailey had evidently already figured out that improving security would do nothing to make it more likely that Iraq's government could act to ease sectarian tensions. What a brain!

Gailey goes on to imply that President Bush predictably opted for the surge strategy as a reaction to the Iraq Survey Group recommendations (turn to Iran and Syrian to resolve security issues and get out--sheer genius).

It's obvious that President Bush has his back up over the Iraq Study Group recommendations. So we shouldn't be surprised if his response is to go for the "surge" option, sacrificing more American lives in his stubborn pursuit of a failed policy.

Gailey's view can in turn be viewed as Bush trying to secure a "narrative" of his successful military action in Iraq, let alone the dire consequences of failure.

Ironically, Gailey is no less (and probably more) engaged in supporting a narrative. That narrative is of an Iraq War that was ill-advised and doomed to eventual failure.

What makes Gailey so absolutely sure that the Iraq government cannot act effectively to sooth sectarian divisions now that the surge is improving security and the Iraqi people are increasingly supporting the idea of a national secular government according to polls?

Don't let the facts get in the way of your narrative, Phil.