A diarist at Kos makes an observation:
The news this morning is full of signs of peace settling over Baghdad as increased troop levels help to quiet the insurgency.
Officials said privately that they hoped to foster a sense of normalcy and encourage limited travel to Iraq, particularly by business people and aid workers. They mentioned that Baghdad International Airport is preparing to reopen in a few days.
Wait, wait, wait. That was 2003.
No, here’s how nice things are in Iraq.
Ammar Hussein finally felt it was safe enough to keep his pizza shop open until midnight. Life was returning to normal in Iraq’s capital. Most nights, families crowded around plastic tables outside his shop to eat pizza and ice cream.
Darn it, that was 2004. This must be the right article.
The amazing realisation is that somehow normal life continues. Shops open, people go to work. Even the Crazy Frog mobile phone ring tone has become the latest fad in Baghdad.
Sorry again, 2005.
Let’s just skip 2006 and go straight to today.
The number of bodies appearing on Baghdad’s streets has plummeted to about 5 a day, from as many as 35 eight months ago, and suicide bombings across Iraq fell to 16 in October, half the number of last summer and down sharply from a recent peak of 59 in March, the American military says.
Ah, paradise.
Don’t misunderstand. I very much hope that this period does represent a real, sustained move toward normalcy in Iraq. Certainly the millions of Iraqi refugees are hoping for the same thing. After months in which tens of thousands of people were fleeing Baghdad each day, around 1,600 a day are now trickling back. That really is a good sign. But there have been a number of "lulls" in violence, and what we’re now looking at as the "lowest number of attacks since February 2006" only means that "normal" has been redefined as worse than anything in 2005, or 2004, or 2003.
As optomistic as I would like to be, I can’t help noticing that first article, the one from a few weeks after the war "ended," includes this paragraph.
Nonetheless, 33 American soldiers have been killed and scores wounded since major hostilities ended in May, making the postwar period the most hazardous peacetime era for Americans.
Normal, is relative.
Yup. It ain’t over yet. And has Kevin Drum correctly points out, a decrease in violence means nothing if there isn’r progress at the political level.
UPDATE: The L.A. Times informs us that our military leaders are cautious as well:
But military and government officials warned at the start of the clampdown that it would not have lasting success unless it was matched with political progress. It is a message being repeated with a new sense of urgency, now that Iraqi leaders can no longer blame huge bombs, mass abductions, and street-by-street fighting as an excuse for political paralysis.