The Anti-Pollyanna Offers Hope [John Podhoretz]
Of all the supporters of the Iraq War, the profoundly percipient and learned Max Boot was the most worried the earliest about how it was going, and, in conversation at least, a sobering voice of reason for someone like me inclined to believe the best. So of all the reports from Baghdad of late that give me cause for hope, this post of Max's (also linked to over at The Tank ) at Contentions (the brilliant new blog at Commentary Magazine's website) is by far the most cheering. Key grafs:
Throughout 2006, the war was going very badly, especially in Baghdad. Large chunks of the city were subject to a bloody campaign of ethnic cleansing, murder, and terrorism. Sunni families fled. Markets closed. Normal life ground to a halt. Those perilous trends have been stopped in the past few months and are beginning to be reversed. This is due to an increased deployment of Iraqi and American troops, and especially to the fact that Americans are no longer staying on their giant forward operating bases. They are patrollng more intensively from joint security stations and small combat outposts located in the middle of the city.
Though only three of the five extra brigades scheduled to be deployed have yet arrived in Baghdad, the offensive has already paid big dividends. A semblance of normality is returning in some neighborhoods, markets are reopening, sectarian murders and ethnic cleansings have been dramatically reduced. The situation still isn't great, but at least the downward trend has been stopped. There have been a few big suicide bombings lately that obscure this improvement, but most of these have been outside Baghdad, where the current security operation is focused. Needless to say, coalition forces can't magically pacify the entire country overnight—and that can't be the measure of success or failure.
The fact that McCain was able and willing to walk around the Shorja market indicates that things are getting better, even if Iraq remains a war zone.
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