I don’t think that anyone disputes the fact that violence in Iraq has diminished since the beginning of the surge. What is disputed by many is the belief that the surge was a wise policy. Many opponents of the surge, including myself, had predicted that the violence would drop during the surge but were skeptical as to whether this would contribute to a lasting political solution. We also questioned whether the surge would be worth the cost, which included further depletion of the resources of our armed forces, allowing conditions in Afghanistan to deteriorate further.
Some of the decrease in violence has been a consequence of political changes which actually began before the surge started. There has been more evidence this month showing that those of us who opposed the surge were right. Bob Woodward’s new book showed several reasons for a drop in violence independent of the surge. One particularly tragic explanation came to light in a report from Reuters released today:
Satellite images taken at night show heavily Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baghdad began emptying before a U.S. troop surge in 2007, graphic evidence of ethnic cleansing that preceded a drop in violence, according to a report published on Friday.
The images support the view of international refugee organizations and Iraq experts that a major population shift was a key factor in the decline in sectarian violence, particularly in the Iraqi capital, the epicenter of the bloodletting in which hundreds of thousands were killed.
Minority Sunni Arabs were driven out of many neighborhoods by Shi’ite militants enraged by the bombing of the Samarra mosque in February 2006. The bombing, blamed on the Sunni militant group al Qaeda, sparked a wave of sectarian violence.
“By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left,” geography professor John Agnew of the University of California Los Angeles, who led the study, said in a statement.
“Essentially, our interpretation is that violence has declined in Baghdad because of intercommunal violence that reached a climax as the surge was beginning,” said Agnew, who studies ethnic conflict.
Update: Looking further at this study I am not certain how much it proves this point, but there is independent evidence that ethnic cleansing was a major factor in the decrease in violence. CNN correspondent Michael Ware has been reporting on this for well over a year.
