Remember Caesar, Thou Art But a Man

While the drop in casualties in Iraq is significant and probably lasting, it is not the final word in achieving victory. I've long argued that casualties aren't a good metric for winning (though once we win, casualties will drop off) and I continue to hold that is true even as we witness reductions in military and civilian casualties.

It may be easy to lose track of this as the war opponents deny any success in this area since they have defined victory as a decline in casualties.

So Amir Taheri's column warning about what must be done should be read:

'A TORRENT of good news": So The New York Times described the reports of a significant fall in violence in Iraq. But reducing all Iraqi news to measures of violence can hamper understanding of a complex situation.

The surge bought time for many factors to lead to our current winning streak and accelerated those existng trends. We all must use the time gained to really win this campaign.

And yes, Sadr's thugs are still out there and a potential threat. I've worried about them as the biggest threat for over two years now. I hope we've broken up his organization enough to make them just capable of violence and not a real threat to the government. Remember, not all of Sadr's thugs are death squad members or tools of Iran. Most simply wanted to protect their neighborhoods from jihadi car bombs.