THE surge of extra American troops into Iraq’s battered capital, which began in mid-February, is at last complete. An extra 21,000 of them are now there, bringing their tally in Baghdad up to 31,000-plus and nationwide to 155,000, the highest troop level since late 2005. Senior American officers say that a third of Baghdad now has a degree of \u201cnormalcy\u201d\u009d; a third, especially those districts with a sectarian fault-line running through them, is still very violent; and a third is in flux.<\/p>\n
Once the Americans have secured Baghdad, so the theory goes, they hope to tackle the so-called \u201cbelts\u201d\u009d just outside Baghdad, in particular the nearby mainly Sunni towns to the south\u201d\u201dMahmudiya, Latifiya and Yusufiya\u201d\u201dencompassing a \u201ctriangle of death\u201d\u009d where al-Qaeda has been active in an area straddling a blurred line between Sunnis and Shias. By stemming the tide of a sectarian war, the Americans still hope to buttress Iraq’s Shia-led government while giving it a last chance to co-opt a serious Sunni component.<\/p>\n
The top American general in Iraq, David Petraeus, who is to report on progress to the American Congress in mid-September, cautions against impatient expectations. He is likely to ask for more time. The commonest guess is that the surge will last at least until next spring and perhaps into the early summer. This week General Petraeus said that counter-insurgency operations sometimes last \u201cnine or ten years\u201d\u009d before they bring success\u201d\u201dyet it is highly unlikely that a new American administration would consider such a timescale.<\/p>\n
In any event, though it is still too early to make firm predictions about the surge, the overall level of violence in Iraq has so far not abated.<\/p>\n