Notice anything missing in this sentence from David Brooks's latest column?

For [the] surge to succeed now, it would have to accomplish the following tasks: compel the Maliki government to deliver public services in a nonsectarian way; convert the Shiite theocrats who now dominate the Iraqi government into ecumenical multiculturalists; persuade the rabid Sunni leaders to accept a dependent role in the new Iraq; induce the traumatized Iraqi people to hang together as the blood flows; sustain, over 18 months, American political support for an arduous policy that begins with a 17 percent approval rating.

What's missing?

Oh, how about "stop Shiite death squads from using electric drills on Sunnis' faces before beheading them and leaving them in ditches"?

(Or is "deliver public services in a nonsectarian way" a discreet, preppy, understated euphemism for "refrain from torturing people of different religious sects with electric drills"?)

A couple of paragraphs later, Brooks talks about "the genocidal Sunni leaders" -- but he never so much as acknowledges that there's unspeakable brutality on the Shiites' part.

Bizarre.

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(UPDATE: Read the damn thing here for free.)