Better Security Through Ethnic Cleaning

Eric Wong and Damien Cave tell the story of a Baghdad success story where Shiite militias have consolidated control and the (Shiite) population enjoys a great deal of security and prosperity, at least by Iraqi standards. As with the troop training issue the point in these cases is that the mission can’t be chasing “success” we need to decide what we’re trying to succeed at. If the underlying conditions of political pluralism aren’t there, then they aren’t there, and the bravery of American troops isn’t going to change that.