Why there are fewer civilian deaths in Baghdad now.

Steve Benen at TPM provides an explanation for why civilian casualties are down in Baghdad compared to last Fall before the "surge" started.

While the U.S. was increasing the number of American troops operating inside Baghdad, the Shiites were conducting ethnic cleansing. The Sunnis who used to dominate western Baghdad are now essentially gone, and are replaced with Shiites. From Newsweek:

When Gen. David Petraeus goes before Congress next week to report on the progress of the surge, he may cite a decline in insurgent attacks in Baghdad as one marker of success. In fact, part of the reason behind the decline is how far the Shiite militias' cleansing of Baghdad has progressed: they've essentially won.

Steve then quotes Matt Yglesias:

"Maybe Bush can change his line to the idea that if we just keep staying the course for 4 or 5 more years, casualties will drop massively because everyone will already be dead or displaced. Or maybe someone can explain to me again about how we can't leave Iraq because of the ethnic cleansing that'll happen without us around."

We aren't keeping our troops in Iraq to prevent ethnic cleansing. When the ethnic cleansing in Iraq is finished the sectarian violence will end, and we can declare victory and get out. We are watching the ethnic cleansing go on and hoping that it will bail us out.

Kevin Drum also discusses the Newsweek article. He points out the fact that

"I've mentioned in passing once or twice before that one possible way for Iraq's civil war to end is simply through attrition. If we just wait it out long enough, eventually someone will win and the fighting will stop — regardless of what the United States Army does or doesn't do."

It does seem pretty self-evident - If we just stay and allow our military people to continue in the occupation, ultimately the problems there will go away. All we have to do is ignore the costs and fail to ask what "winning" will look like.