Bryan Finoki contemplates the new barrier going up in Sadr City:
Since similar walls have gone up in and around Baghdad, officials claim reconstruction efforts and security conditions have improved in these neighborhoods. But I’m always interested how these walls are described to us politically and strategically, as either isolating the militias on the outskirts into cloistered neighborhoods, or as protecting the neighborhoods under threat behind barriers turning them essentially into "protective enclaves" and gated communities. One view is intended to describe an isolation outwards, shutting the militias out, while another describes an isolation inwards, enclosing the communities within. Either way, the wall serves these effects the same, but it is always curious to see how the wall is sold; as a gated community or an insurgent holding pen.
Nevertheless, I understand the short-term effect of these barriers, but we hardly hear enough any discussion from the media or American/Iraqi officials about the long-term effects of using this strategy. Can a nation really be successfully rebuilt behind a micro-insertion of blast walls? I understand security needs to be obtained first, [but] will the walls lead to a more long term systemic security? An eradication of these militias?
The Dish 