Order Of Operations

As I've said before, it's easy to look at numbers and see progress, but in doing that alone, there is a human element to the situation that gets lost. One might argue that those human elements aren't particularly important, but I'd seriously disagree with that. The perceptions of the population that must be won over are critical when it comes to success, and the context those perceptions occur in are extremely important as well; it's not enough to simply see what's happening, we have to see the conditions in which it is happening as well. For instance:

"Today, the market was very crowded and we were happy about that," he said. "The Iraqi security officials have deceived us by their statements that the situation is 80 percent better. People believed them and began to go out thinking that it would be safe. I think that the situation will become worse again."

And there's this from an MSNBC article:

"'I expect that security will improve day by day. People are tired of conflict.'Still, she has lines that she is not yet willing to cross."

The point is that nobody knows what the near future holds for Iraq, and even Iraqis don't agree on it. A more obvious point is that the entirety of Iraq isn't safe yet, and there still isn't a common perception of safety, which is something that the American and Iraqi effort will still need to work on. The kinetic war in any society never ends, it just becomes minuscule enough that most people don't fear it and the police can generally handle it. That's as true in the United States as it is in Iraq.

The Iraqi people are wary of the extremist violence that is still being perpetrated, even if the situation is better than it was. This perception is important, because people must begin to feel safe before the extremely desirable goals of political and social reconciliation can occur. Fear is antithetical to reform, so that fear - the perception of insecurity - has to be reduced for Iraq to move forward.

Combating that insecurity is not so much a matter of strength as it is a matter of patience. Of course, safety from violent elements is crucial, but so is provision of electricity, water, sanitation, medical services, and jobs. An absence of all of these things lends to that insecurity, and the provision of all these things by the right people can turn the population in the right direction.

Those things are the next step, not political reconciliation. Congressional democrats have been arguing to reduce funding for the American effort based on the fact that political reconciliation hasn't occurred, and they're jumping the gun in a pretty big way. There's still much more that can physically be done to alter the perceptions of the population, and those things need to occur before our ultimate goals can be met.

We're making progress, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.