my memory of the history of the surge was that the bush administration resisted for years the idea that the rumsfeldt doctrine was wrong, and argued that to put more “boots on the ground” would just create more targets for the insurgents. finally, you had both mccain and petraeus arguing that the bush administration was in denial about how much the iraq effort was going down the drain. so, after the 2006 election, bush fired rumsfeldt and told petraeus, “ok, if you think you know what to do, go ahead”

in other words, the resistance to the surge came totally from the bush administration - to admit that more troops were needed was to admit both that the rumsfeldt doctrine was wrong and that things were no a-ok in iraq

“state of denial”