The New Deal

First, if you're a regular reader, thanks very much for your patience these last few weeks. I'm now very comfortably situated in England, everything went as well as could be expected and in some cases a little better.

While I was gone, the numbers for December 2007 came in at 21 US fatalities, and icasualties.org places civilian and ISF casualties at 548 - just a shade lower than November 2007. This is supposed to give politicians room to make progress, but it also has the added bonus of giving the US room to make it's next move: jobs, jobs, jobs. ABC News has the story dated January 2nd:

"Modeled on a program under which the U.S. pays armed groups who turned against al-Qaida in Iraq, the military has begun recruiting villagers for public service jobs working to improve sanitation, do repairs and pick up trash."

As I've said before, lack of jobs can drive the insurgency and in many places, it does. What it's going to come down to are measures exactly like this one: give them something to do that eases the discontent both in their streets and in their homes. They need money to feed their families, and they need functional neighborhoods to keep them safe. And it wouldn't hurt to have something to be proud of.

We've seen this kind of effort happening on a much smaller scale elsewhere, but that it's becoming a serious program in some places is encouraging. Of course it won't stop the violence all by itself, but it is a move in the right direction. While having paid CLCs running security where they can is helpful, they can't all stay gunmen forever. Someday they will be safe enough that those fighters will need new jobs, and if they can simply be rolled into this new program and earn the same rate for a different task, so much the better.

It's a new year. Let's hope that the Iraqis make the best of it.