Can't see these developments helping anyone other than our friends in Iran. Sounds like a broken-record to say so, but the US occupation in Iraq is the gift that just keeps on giving for the ayatollahs.

You should say of course the surge worked; anyone who thinks otherwise must be a complete moron. It has resulted in the lowest death rate of US soldiers for the entire war despite having the largest number of US troops. This is an objective fact and I, Mr. Ricks, cannot spin this fact regardless of my political leanings, and fewer American deaths is a good thing, regardless of how I feel about the wisdom of the war. This is after all, war, not a press conference or the Continental Congress.

You can also add that maybe Bush and Patraeus were right, and that unilaterally announcing beforehand a withdrawal timeline as Obama has done may undermine all of the gains of the surge, and we may be witnessing the beginning stages of the consequences of his folly. After all, Obama is responsible for what comes from his plans, not Bush, no matter how much ideologically-driven journalists may try to spin things.

By the way, Mr. Ledeen, a Marine who was in Iraq and participated in the surge has a fascinating first-hand account of what really happened at the Huffington Post, stripped of much of the ideological baggage that weighs down so much of the coverage.

Avoiding the never-ending discussion of disrupting regional balances of power, nature abhoring a vacuum, etc. etc. etc. the answer is simple.

It worked. What's next?

Avoiding the never-ending discussion of disrupting regional balances of power, nature abhoring a vacuum, etc. etc. etc. the answer is simple.

It worked. What's next?

Did you know that for the first time in several years, the size of the arctic ice cap did not set new record for smallest area this summer?!!

Holly crap! The surge stopped global warming!

I think this is an isolated incident in which Maliki is flexing his muscle again to remind the SOI who the boss is. The PM has played a very effective carrot and stick policy with them in the past and this appears to be more of the same. In the summer of 2008 he began arresting a few SOI leaders in Baghdad and then tried to break and divide the entire SOI in Diyala. When the government took over they also cut their pay. No one fought back then, this time some one decided to and it only lasted 2 days. Baghdad holds their paycheck and the hope for a permanent job, and I don't think many want to go back to fighting. musingsoniraq.blogspot.com

Is it tactically significant that the Fadhil flare-up was on the E. side of the river, adjacent to the strategic Sunni Adhimiya enclave/bridgehead? Control of the bridges seems to me to be the tactical key to the battle for Baghdad. The government admin. center$ are on both sides of the bridges.

In 2005-6, the Shiite/Hakim/Maliki/Sadr/Talibani coalition would never give Casey the troops to consolidate control along the river line, during the abortive 'Forward Together' operations. Linda Robinson's thesis is that Maliki's government was in the middle of the Shiite push, aiming to drive the Sunni West. If so, they would want to surge their own forces across the bridge choke-points without US interference.

Pres. Bush famously made Gen. Casey repeat 'we are not going for a draw". But in fact an unstable stalemate is what the 'surge' achieved, thru a year of bloody urban fighting. For us, and for the major Iraqi factions.

Phoney truce is better than mortars and murder, but everyone knew and knows sectarian arms were being stockpiled, especially in Baghdad. The Sunni militia can't sustain what's left E. of the river (Adhamiya and Karrada) without the US enforced truce to keep their lifelines open. The first (June/09) benchmark of the Withdrawal/SOFA is to move US troops out of the way. Again. Any turf Sawa loses on the E., especially access routes to the bridges and waterfront, they'll never get back.

Is there any reason to think the Hakims and Dawa will settle for anything less than their 2005-6 goal of driving the Sunni into Anbar? What would Team Cheney do?

You're using a dramatic gun-battle with a total of.. wait.. zero casualties to prove the point that the surge hasn't worked. I'm overwhelmed. Never mind that similar gunfights were erupting several times a day, every day across Iraq just a year ago, claiming thousands of lives every week.

I guess its just not newsworthy to report on the lives saved by each firefight we've stopped. Better to emphasize zero-casualty skirmishes as evidence that the surge is "unraveling" and arrogantly bracket the word "worked" in quotations. Great contribution.

The sky-is-falling, the sky-is-falling.....

Tom, here we go again. The surge worked in large part because it occurred at the same time that the Sunnis lost the civil war. The "Sons of Iraq" (which in fact is distinct from the Awaking Movement)are not capable of taking on the Iraqi government and Mashhadani was going to be taken down eventually because he was one of AQ's point guys in eastern Baghdad and responsible for too many murders to be left alone.

Moreover, if you take a closer look at Iraqi politics you'll notice that Malaki and his Shi'ite coalition is reaching out to Sunni MP Saleh al-Mutlag. Malaki can do this because he is strong and national coalitions are starting to displace purely sectarian alliances.

Also, I won't rely so much on Shadid, he's a bit of a sectarian himself.

The surge worked to accomplish everything the Americans could have done, and did not work to accomplish everything the Iraqis should have done.

The success it did have was, as Ricks himself has documented, achieved against some long odds. Our problem is that if we insist on regarding Iraq's political evolution as an American responsibility we'll have an army in Iraq forever. Do we not, at some point, have to start thinking in terms of Iraqi success and failure? Or are we going instead to throw up our hands, as Ricks does at the end of "The Gamble," and resolve that any future outcome in an Iraq without the American army would be so terrible that we must continue shoveling men and money into this one, mid-sized Arab country until the end of time?

Say "The Surge worked. It's this whole withdrawal thing that's giving us problems."

I Googled Adil Mashadani. This guy was fighting along side al-Qaeda until the 2007 when he switched sides. He is a Sunni. Now that al-Qaeda has been put down, the Shia majority gov't is remembering its grudge against the Sunni's that had run the region since the Ottoman Empire. When Adil and his men stopped getting paid he said something about some of his men switching back to al-Qaeda in order to feed their families. This gave the Iraqi gov't an excuse to arrest him which, in turn, lead to the violence in the report. Now the Sunnis are asking themselves if the Iraqi gov't is going to keep the promises the U.S. made.

The Surge worked. Violence is down and al-Qaeda is all but smashed on the battlefield they chose to fight us on. However, everybody is used to the violence. Saddam Hussein ruled by violence. Our liberation of the country brought a different kind of violence. Peace and security is a new combination that nobody is used to yet. They are used to strongman dictators that enforced their will at the point of a gun. Nobody in Iraq has ever experienced a gov't of laws. A few months of relative peace and quiet are not enough to ensure a lasting peace. The people of Iraq need a couple years of this to allow peace to become normal for them. To make violence something unexpected and something bad to be protested. Right now we, the United States, are the only ones the Iraqis trust explicitly. They may be mad that we are there, but when we try to leave those same people that were mad at us will beg us to stay. Because America does a better job of keeping its promises than anyone else they know*. Because we do our best to not discriminate between Shia, Sunni, and Kurd. Because we treat the Iraqis with more respect than the Iraqis do. We're probably trying to leave too fast. Bugging out while all the factions are still holding guns and growling at each other is probably a bad idea. An orderly withdrawal is one of the most difficult military maneuvers to pull off. The Surge worked. But the withdrawal will probably get ugly.

*We aren't nessessarily good at keeping promises, but there isn't anyone better. It's a rough, unforgiving, world.

I don't think you could get any credible journalist who has studied Iraq to say the state of things in Iraq is simply:

a test of strength, Sunni vs. Shiite.

The Iraqi Kurdish minority in northern Iraq are predominately Sunni; and you might have noticed the current president of Iraq, is Sunni. Furthermore, all Sunni's do not endorse or encourage the fighting that is tearing their country apart.
The situation, to say the least, is much more complicated than even that.

As for the over exaggerating bit:

I think Maliki's gambit is to crack down on the Sunnis while American forces are still available in sufficient numbers to back him up.

The same Maliki that helped to organize the American draw down from Iraq, also wishes to simultaneous perpetuate this conflict? I doubt it. Stepping lightly over the insinuation that Maliki has something against all Sunnis, one notices that he's already done quite a bit for all Iraqis; and does not get enough credit for it. Only takes a second of research.

Secondly if an analysis on Iraq is going to be done on this 'Sunni on Shiite' level one has to notice that the Shiite have the Sunni beat, by shear number. Since the Iraq population is about 60% Shia, the country may have to allow for more Shiite politicians.

So my question to the author would be: In contrast to ruminating over Iraq's latest misfortune, what would you do to make it a better place?

Have you ever considered taking up an honest line of work?

I see monthly press releases about how low the inflation has become in Iraq. However, it seems the rates are always indexed to "last year at this time" or "compared to last month." So when the announcement says inflation decreased 4.4% compared to last month... I'm not really sure what I'm seeing.

Any of you guys in Iraq now...or just get back?

What is the going rate for a pack of cigarettes, a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread...staples.

Whatever you recall in Dinars and/or Dollars would be helpful to get a handle on real buying power in Iraq. Am I right to believe that $200 USD is an average salary?
Unemployment is still high, is it not?

It seems a high priority has to be on Security, and economic development to get people working. Those that are working and see "a light at the end of the tunnel," and can sincerely believe it's not a train coming....it seems would be less likely potential anti-government recruits.

Input...anyone...Bueller....Bueller...