comparative degrees

Language reflects culture--and can be confusing to a non-native speaker.




"Drive by Diplomacy" has a complicated origin.

First there were Drive By Restaurants that served people fast food with out requiring them to set foot out of the car.

A Drive by Shooting meant shooting from a car--without even stopping to aim. This is very dangerous for bystanders.

Then we had Drive by Surgery--same day surgery. The patient did not have to spend the night in the hospital.

Drive-by Diplomacy means popping up and making speeches without ever really trying to know the people you're talking at or finding out what these people want. Drive-by Diplomacy is not effective.

After 2004 it became clear that Drive-by Diplomacy was not working. Violence (against the U.S., against other religious sects, against private enemies) increased dramatically.

After "the surge" when more troops were stationed in troubled neighborhoods, violence declined.

How to interpret the meaning of the comparison?


See if my interpretation of the above two comparisons are correct:

1. it's nothing more than drive-by diplomacy

2. to levels of violence which is as bad as it was in 2004.

Yet even after Hussein's fall, U.S. peace efforts amounted to little more than drive-by diplomacy, a trip here and a speech there but no sustained campaign to secure a settlement in the decades-old conflict.

In Iraq, the success attributed to the surge led by Gen. David H. Petraeus has returned the country to levels of violence no worse than in 2004.

________________________________________________________-

Peace efforts = drive-by diplomacy. "Drive-by diplomacy" is explained in the next clause --- a trip here, a speech somewhere else. There was no campaign to secure a settlement of the war.

2. the surge has made the levels of violence = to what it was in 2004.

Did neither of you read Fansy's question properly?



"little more than" means "not very much more than".

"no worse than" means "as bad as, but not worse than".