This is going to take some time. You know, we've always said the level of coalition forces is a function of three things. It's the level of the insurgency, it's the capability of Iraqi security forces, and it's the capacity of the Iraqi government at the national, provincial and local levels.
I've explained this before. Not only do we want to build up Iraqi military capabilities, we want to degrade enemy capabilities. Making sure our allies are relatively better than the enemy is the key--and not making Iraqi army units equal to ours. And of course the government and society sukpporting the security forces must be robust enough to win.
We are succeeding. But it is going to take some time. How much time depends on whether the enemy reaches a breaking point and collapses or whether we must grind them down gradually.
A political settlement with the remnant Sunni Arab population would help isolate the remaining fanatics. If leaders from the bottom up keep cutting deals with our forces, pretty soon Sunni Arab "leaders" may find they need to catch up before they are irrelevant.
