News of Iraq’s improved security situation has reached the New York Times—at least its Washington Bureau. Michael Gordon, its military correspondent, has written that attacks in Iraq had declined to the lowest level since January 2006, “adding to a body of evidence. . . that the violence had diminished significantly since the United States reinforced troop levels in Iraq and adopted a new counterinsurgency strategy.” The Gordon article quotes Brookings’ Michael O’Hanlon, another Washington insider, saying “These trends are stunning in military terms and beyond the predictions of most proponents of the surge last winter.”
Of still greater significance, Washington-based Timesman Tom Friedman has quietly signed on to the guardedly more optimistic view of how things are going in Iraq. Here’s how Friedman words it: It’s clear that the surge by U.S. troops has really dampened violence in Iraq. . .The surge has made Iraq safe. . . for an ‘A.T.M. peace’. . . the Baghdad government. . . as an A.T.M. cash machine — supporting the army and local security groups and dispensing oil revenues to the provincial governors and tribal chiefs from each community.
Can the informal arrangements they’re cobbling together reach a level of stability that would enable a major drawdown of U.S. forces next year? I don’t know. My Iraq crystal ball stopped working a long time ago. I’m taking this one step at a time. Right now what is indisputable is that we are seeing the first crack in years in a wall of pessimism that has been the Iraq story.
Whoa! Friedman back to hoping for an Iraq win?
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