Given what seemed like a pretty heavy pace of casualties in Anbar in recent months, this seems like a striking decline. And Outside the Wire reports an Anbar vastly improved from the fall of 2006.
I did not waver even when a Marine report on the province painted the situation as dire. Or at least press reports about the report said it was dire:
Counter-insurgency has a military component but it is primarily a political problem absent an extermination campaign (and that only settles the problem for a generation). Our military can buy time for the political track and that is what we are doing. That, and atomizing the enemy so the Iraqi military can handle the threat. It isn't a matter of more troops in Anbar. It is a matter of Iraqi troops and a government presence being planted in the province to push the neutrals to side with the government and push the enemy to slide into neutrality or even pro-government attitudes.
The political change I said was necessary has happened with the decision by Sunni tribes to fight the jihadis instead of fighting the government. Although the defection was due more to jihadi atrocities than government inducement. And the extreme measures I thought would be put in place by the Iraqis if the Sunnis didn't come in from the cold fortunately won't be necessary in Anbar.
I hate to point to short-term casualty statistics, since that can change. One high-casualty event can change the averages quickly. Yet this low level of casualties in Anbar seems like something different and lasting since it is based on progress in the area that counts most--prying the people away from the enemy--rather than a short-term result of new troops or tactics.
If I had bet a year ago on whether we'd pacify Anbar or Baghdad first, I'd have picked Baghdad. But that may not be the way it is working out. Not bad for a supporting effort.
