Justus For All

Michael Yon writes:
The great victory of the past year and a half has been the decision of Sunni citizens to turn against Sunni outlaws. Now, neither we nor the Iraqi government can maintain our credibility with the Sunni if the Shia militias are allowed to remain outside the law.

The militias, unlike Al Qaeda, are not insane; we can negotiate with them. But we and the Iraqi government can only capitalize on the shifting sentiments of the Shia neighborhoods if we first demonstrate that we and the government - not the gangs - control the streets.

That means, for the next few months, expect more blood, casualties and grim images of war. This may lead to a shift in the political debate inside the United States and more calls for rapid withdrawal. But on the ground in Iraq, it’s a sign of progress.

Makes a fair bit of sense to me. One could of course argue that this is a purely internal Iraqi matter, and we shouldn’t be involved. I believe though that American interests will be best served by our helping build the Iraqi institutions that their society will have to rely on in the coming years, and we can only do that be being there. As an added benefit, doing this will be a tremendous opertunity to really learn how to build such institutions from the ground up, a task I fear we will be called on to perform more and more in the coming years, as failed states continue to represent greater and greater threats.

I also highly recommend Yon’s book, Moment of Truth in Iraq.