Despite the jump in terrorist bombings in the last few days, the death toll in Baghdad, since the security operations began two weeks ago, have declined by over 70 percent. Shia civilians were afraid that, with Shia militiamen off the streets, there would be more attacks by Sunni death squads. This didn't happen, mainly because Sunni civilians, who provided safe houses for Sunni terrorists, have been driven from Shia neighborhoods. The Sunni killers have to travel farther to find a target, and that is more difficult because the Iraqi army and police have erected more check points over the last six months. American intelligence analysts have also used predictive software to analyze terrorist attacks and movements, and determined the best places to put the new checkpoints, and what to look for. Getting past checkpoints has become a major chore for Sunni terrorists, and many of them don't make it. When you hear of a suicide bombing with only one or two dead, that's usually a car bomber caught at a check point. Sometimes they take the bomber alive, which is an intelligence bonanza, as the bomb, and the bomber, can be examined at length.
Despite the cries of opponents of the surge that there is no new strategy involved, there surely is:
Adding 20,000 troops to Iraq in a five- to six-month window is a significant increase but in and of itself not decisive, and certainly not a "new strategy."
The relentless, focused targeting of Shia and Sunni extremist organizations is a far more important feature of what Iraqis are calling "the new security plan" than more U.S. troops. The coalition's effort to better integrate the economic and political development "lines of operation" with security operations could have greater long-term effects.
And of course, in the end, the military effort is just one part of the effort. The Iraqis are trying to sway the Sunnis by allowing the less tainted Baathists to rejoin the government:
Former Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi advocated a similar program in 2004, but Allawi's government was appointed, not elected. Saddam Hussein was also still alive. Maliki is an elected prime minister, and his government carried out Saddam's court-ordered death sentence. Maliki has the political capital to implement the program.
While I supported de-Baathification all along, I also recognized that not all Baathists can be pushed aside and given no choice but fighting or fleeing. And I have supported amnesty even when war supporters were outraged we'd allow those who killed Americans to get away with it. This view overlooked the objective of defeating the insurgency by substituting the objective of killing every enemy.
If we can draw in the Sunni Arabs (but not reverse the results of liberation, I should add), choking off the doomed but still lethal killers will pick up speed.
I worry a lot about using the level of violence as a metric for success or failure in this operation. In the long run, victory in the war will mean that the violence is squelched as the enemy is reduced. But in the short run, I hate to tie victory over a still-resisting (if doomed) enemy that just has to kill civilians in large numbers at least once a week to create that media effect of "resisting."
Oh, and check out the update to this post for an amusing aspect of the operation. Amusing in a tragic I-can't-believe-people-actually-think-this-way manner, but amusing nonetheless. The DU at work ...
