In my letter to the editor on Dec. 5, I proved that while the surge never worked and in fact led to triple digit deaths for our soldiers three months in a row - April, May and June - when we'd never even had two such months in a row, that what had worked since at least September and arguably since mid-June - when it was inaugurated - was our truce with most of the insurgents and our subsequent use of them against al-Qaida through better counterinsurgency and "The Awakening."

Unfortunately, December proved to be the low not only for our soldiers' deaths, but for deaths of Iraqi Security Forces and deaths of Iraqi civilians.

It's as if - what a concept - the patience and cooperation of our newfound insurgent allies wasn't limitless time-wise, that we didn't have 100 years, but more like six months, and when we failed to announce troop withdrawals as a reward, they made some New Year's resolutions.

Since January, not only have our own deaths been higher than December each month, Iraqi Security Forces and Iraqi civilian casualties have been as follows: August, 1,674; September, 848; October, 679; November, 560; December, 548; January, 554; February, 674; March, 980.

If you guessed the pattern looks like a parabola with December as the minimum, you're right. Look for April to go to well over 1,000.

If you guessed that oil going to well over $100 since January is correlated with all this, you're right again. So not only did the surge never work, but even what did work is no longer working.

The only solution is to leave and hope the central government will get medieval on the insurgents - old-school Saddam-style - once we're no longer there to restrain them.

Robert Edward Johnson

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