Certainly, victory in the end will be signalled by the great reduction of enemy violence. Eventually. But in the near term, this is problematic. An enemy determined to fight can pull off spectacular kills even with our troops all over the place. Terrorists need only the will to kill and nearby civilians grouped together.
This is one reason I worry about that metric:
Two suicide bombers turned a procession of Shiite pilgrims into a blood-drenched stampede Tuesday, killing scores with a first blast and then claiming more lives among fleeing crowds. At least 106 were killed amid a wave of deadly strikes against Shiites heading for a solemn religious ritual.
We are only at the beginning of this operation. Which is why I haven't trumpeted early statistics.
We have a delicate mission of protecting Shias from Sunni terrorists so that Shias won't murder Sunnis in retaliation; and protecting Sunnis from Shia death squads so Sunnis will turn in Sunni terrorists. If we can get this movement going before fear and rage reignite the sectarian killings, we will have a chance at meeting the metric we've set for ourselves.
And we must not prevent Shia militias from performing a purely defensive function. Not all Shia militias are alike. Crush the death squads and absorb the local defense forces.
We may yet in the months ahead be able to declare victory based on our chosen metric, but I am worried. We have the right approach to this phase of the war, but may have the wrong metric.
