The Anbar achievement

The transfer of Anbar province to Iraqi control marks another step forward in Iraq. The transformation in Anbar has been quite incredible. Two years ago, no one sane would have predicted that the then heartland of the Sunni insurgency would be peacefully and voluntarily handed over by the United States at the end of August 2008 with the occasion marked by a parade featuring unarmed US troops.

To be sure, there is still much work to be done in Iraq. The situation there is fragile and there appear to be some new problems to confront but there has been a remarkable amount of progress made there in the past year and a bit; the number of attacks has fallen from a hundred and eighty a day in June 2007 to around twenty a day at the beginning of this August. Thinking of Iraq as a total disaster with the only question being how quickly the coalition can leave is simply out of date.