Speaking of brutality

Yesterday, Mario Loyola wondered whether we have the determination necessary to fight a brutal enemy in the ME at anything like their own capacity for brutal behavior. Then last night, Dean Barnett noted this from Strategy Page, also from yesterday:

December 28, 2006: Without much fanfare, much less a press release, the government and Coalition troops have gone to war with Moqtada al Sadrs Mahhi Army militia. Leaders are being arrested or killed. The raids are being carried out with overwhelming speed and force, so that pro-Sadr gunmen have little chance to put up effective resistance. Some of the raids are in support of an effort to find five civilian security contractors (four Americans and an Austrian), who are held by a Shia militia for ransom, or political purposes. No one is sure, and that apparently includes the kidnappers. The five men were seized six weeks ago.

Some American commanders are urging that several additional brigades of U.S. combat troops be brought in for a few months, to back the Iraqi security forces, as the Shia militias are taken down. The most dangerous part of this plan is now, with the well armed and motivated militias still intact. But once the organizations are broken, and arms, records and leaders seized, the problem will be largely a police, not military one.

"Moqtada, Moqtada!, Moqtada!," indeed.

This needed to happen two years ago and the worst thing that could happen now is a premature end to such operations. So again we come back to the central question: Do we have the determination to finish this?