Dean's World

Look closer, Mike. See the leash?

(Warning: this comment thread may soon become unsuitable for children...)

As far as I'm concerned, the good news from Iraq is that the people there have taken three giant steps closer to breaking up their centralized government into a federation of three separate nations. Which is what they always have been when not under control of a dictator.

It has been suggested that the US troops be pulled out of all the Arab-populated parts of Iraq and stay in bases in Kurdistan, where the people, in contrast to the Arabs, are said to strongly favor our presence.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Here's more good news: another Iraqi Army unit steps up.

MUQDADIYAH, IRAQ – In the fertile "bread basket" of central Iraq's Diyala valley, roadside-bomb attacks have nearly stopped.
The relative peace in the breadbasket is the result of a carefully managed transition from US to Iraqi security responsibility, US and Iraqi commanders say.
The local Iraqi Army unit, the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, officially took the lead in a roughly 1,158 square-mile battle space, containing nearly 300,000 residents, on July 31.
"We're responsible for actual security, and it is going well," says the unit's commander, Col. Theya Ismail al-Tamimi, a former intelligence officer under Saddam Hussein who has gained the Americans' respect by keeping constant pressure on the insurgents. "Attacks are a fraction of what they were," says Colonel Theya, as he is known to both his own troops and the Americans.
US troops recently closed down one of their forward operating bases near here, "since the area was so calm," Lt. Col. Roger Cloutier, a US battalion commander, says.
...
While the 2/2 evolved out of one of Iraq's earliest postinvasion army formations, its success can be replicated everywhere with time, the US commander says. "I can't speak outside my sandbox. But to different degrees, you have the same things happening all over Iraq."

That seems encouraging.