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The New York Times notices that, hey, Iraq’s improving.

Fancy that.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  September 21st, 2008 at 11:03 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

This article by Dexter Filkins nuances the situation to a fare-the-well, of course – but that’s the Old Grey Lady for you. I’m tempted to unload on the author for being quite so surprised at the notion that possibly, possibly things weren’t quite as doomed as he thought, but like Allahpundit I’m going to nobly restrain myself.

Back in Iraq, Jarred by the Calm

BAGHDAD — At first, I didn’t recognize the place.

On Karada Mariam, a street that runs over the Tigris River toward the Green Zone, the Serwan and the Zamboor, two kebab places blown up by suicide bombers in 2006, were crammed with customers. Farther up the street was Pizza Napoli, the Italian place shut down in 2006; it, too, was open for business. And I’d forgotten altogether about Abu Nashwan’s Wine Shop, boarded up when the black-suited militiamen of the Mahdi Army had threatened to kill its owners. There it was, flung open to the world.

Two years ago, when I last stayed in Baghdad, Karada Mariam was like the whole of the city: shuttered, shattered, broken and dead.

Abu Nawas Park — I didn’t recognize that, either. By the time I had left the country in August 2006, the two-mile stretch of riverside park was a grim, spooky, deserted place, a symbol for the dying city that Baghdad had become.

These days, the same park is filled with people: families with children, women in jeans, women walking alone. Even the nighttime, when Iraqis used to cower inside their homes, no longer scares them. I can hear their laughter wafting from the park. At sundown the other day, I had to weave my way through perhaps 2,000 people. It was an astonishing, beautiful scene — impossible, incomprehensible, only months ago.

Read, as they say, the whole thing – and I have three observations.

One, Iraq is not yet Iowa. It’s healing, not healed. But it is healing.

Two, Iraq can very easily slip back to chaos if we’re not careful.

Three, if we had listened to Senator Barack Obama – and the rest of the antiwar movement – Iraq would today be the Hell-on-Earth that Mr. Filkins was expecting to see, and so pleasantly shocked to not. Remember: Not In Your Name.

Not then.
Not now.
Not ever.

Moe Lane

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  • 29Victor

    I’m re-posting my rambling rant from Hot Air. I’m quoting myself, it’s tacky, I don’t care, I’m my biggest fan…

    And so they did, with a series of offensives against the Qaeda insurgents in and around Baghdad in 2007 and then, earlier this year, in Basra and in Baghdad against the Mahdi Army.

    So when teachers go on teaching schoolchildren, and hippies go on hollering that ?war never sloved anything,? can we beat them with an axe handle?

    Along the way, the Americans got a huge break: The leaders of Iraq?s large Sunni tribes, which had included many insurgents, decided to stop opposing the Americans and join them against Al Qaeda.

    Wow. What-a-stroke-of-luck. Who could have ever thought that would happen when we began kicking bad-guy butt? The offensives and the ?huge break? are mentioned in the same paragraph, but completely unrelated /sarc off.

    And when did it cease to be called ?Bush?s surge?? The press used to love to call it ?Bush?s surge,? (Google it) but now it?s just ?the surge.? I wonder what could have happened to make the difference?.

    I?m tired of these articles. The lefties who attacked and attacked Bush for his policies on Iraq are being forced to admit that Iraq looks a whole lot better then they ever imagained that it could, but they never give credit where credit is due. They don?t mention Bush at all or the fact that he stood up to Congress and opinion polls to make this happen, they give a sentence or two to the Surge (that they insisted before would never work), they don?t mention the troops, they act like we suddenly just got a really lucky break that just happened to correspond with the Surge and accomplished exactly what the Surge was intended to accomplish. They mention neither McCain?s nor Obama?s previous opinions on the surge (because they probably agreed with Obama).

    Oh, and then they have to throw in ?but it could all fall apart at any time,? and then stress that point?and then illustrate it?and then mention it again?because they don?t want to look too hopeful for Iraq, I mean, how would they defend that at their cocktail parties? And it could still all go into the crapper (fingers crossed).

    And at the end we get a nice little tribute to the Iraqi people. The wonderful people who didn?t stand up to Sadam Hussein, who didn?t win their own liberty, who would side with whomever had the most guns & biggest explosions. But, again, not one word about the troops or the president who forced freedom down these people?s throats. And not one word about that freedom either. Just ?things back to normal,? like they would have been before the mean old Americans came in an messed everyting up (you see, if freedom isn?t that important, then life under Saddam wasn?t really that bad).

    This last bit turns the whole piece into, not a story of a successful liberation of an oppressed people but the blood, sweat and tears of a great nation, but a story of a people?s resiliency in the face of an American war.

  • Mord

    I was there in 2005 during one of the worst years of the war. Listening to anti-war zealots constantly smear the President and the military makes my blood boil. Get over your BDS and admit you were wrong, you freedom moochers.

  • RedFox84

    Apparently they packed up shop back in March, according to their website.

    They probably didn’t feel it necessary to be active anymore, since their choice of Barack Obama was ascendant in the Democrat nomination.

  • Mord

    You expressed my thought much better than I could ever hope to. Every tiny little bit of good news that gets reported is accompanied by dire warnings that everything could fall apart at any second. I have said before that Bush will be remembered as a great president 20 years from now. The left cannot and will not acknowledge what has actually been done in Iraq, for the greater good of the whole region. They have invested too much of their credibility and reputations in America’s defeat.

  • PaRep
  • mbecker908
  • Adjoran

    was a specifically designed part of the counter-insurgency strategy developed by General Petraeus and his colleagues. The troop “surge” was another part of that strategy.

    To claim, as the media and Obama have been doing, that the change of Sunni hearts in Anbar and elsewhere was somehow a spontaneous phenomenon that occurred simultaneously with the new strategy only by sheer coincidence, is to be blatantly dishonest.

    Who cares if the media gives Bush any credit now or not? History will be the judge of this.

    It is imperative, however, to insist at every point the subject comes up, that opponents acknowledge McCain was right and his proposed strategy has succeeded, and Obama was 100% wrong and his proposed strategy would have led to disaster.

  • 29Victor

    It’s been six days now since the U.S. nuclear strike on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but little progress has been made in the War in the Pacific. Did Truman make the right decision?

    In an unrelated story… In an incredible stroke of luck for the U.S. and its allies, Emperor Hirohito has had a change of heart and may now be willing to sign a surrender agreement.

    This comment began as a joke, but then I looked up Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at Wikipedia (I needed to know how to spell “Nagasaki”). Take a look at the intro paragraphs. The atomic bombings are nowhere stated to be the reason for Japan’s surrender. It’s almost as if the intro is just reporting what happened that week in Japan and those were the two biggest news stories.