Iraq The Model's Vision of Beauty

Omar at Iraq The Model had a fabulous post Sunday on how to bring security to Iraq. It's long, but it's well worth reading, and it's worth our military brass in Iraq reading it as well.

The future of Iraq depends largely on the ability of the government to provide security for the citizens and no political progress no matter how significant will have value on the ground if citizens do not sense real improvement in security and this improvement needs to be reached as soon as possible and since time is crucial here, the government and the coalition need to think of starting with relatively smaller regions (in size) yet of high security value for the country, more specifically Baghdad.

Why is Baghdad so important?

Iraq like many other countries is a country that exists as long as the center (the capital) exists and there are many examples in history that prove that who controls Baghdad controls the rest of the country.

We saw that when terrorists got kicked out of Fallujah how many of them moved to Amiriyah in western Baghdad, and when operations intensified in the "triangle of death" many others moved to Doura towards the center and so on. So let's try to reverse this situation and let's start with Karrada district for example, it is adjacent to the green zone and is relatively calmer than other parts of Baghdad, do intense cordon and search operations, put the district under strict supervision for some time then finally add to the green zone after it's safe.

Repeat this with more districts one at a time and add more districts to this bigger safe zone until eventually all of Baghdad becomes secure and it won't be a bad idea to make the procedures of entering the new safe Baghdad similar to the procedures currently employed in controlling traffic into the green zone.

There's more. It's practical, and it's possible. Here's Omar's conclusion:

Can you imagine what things will be like when Baghdad becomes a safe place where diplomats are not afraid to come, businessmen are not afraid to invest their money, people are not afraid to go to work, passenger flights are not afraid to land like they do in other airports in this world?

I can, and it's a vision of beauty that can become a reality.