Optimism Grows in Baghdad

Filed under: General News — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on July 3, 2008 @ 3:00 pm CEST

The German newspaper the SPIEGEL reports that ‘[t]here is an unexpected air of normalcy prevailing in Baghdad these days, with consumption flourishing and confidence in the government growing.’ The newspaper even points out that ‘[t]he progress is astonishing.’ The question is, of course, whether it can last.

The article shows that the situation in Iraq, and especially in Baghdad has improved dramatically. Iraqis themselves are aware of this as well; they’re increasingly confident and happy. Nowadays, people can even sell pork in Baghdad; this while Islam forbids eating pork and extremists have often tried to make it impossible for people to sell and eat it.

Now that Iraq is less chaotic, and now that that the surge has kicked extremists back into the ghetto, however, people are once again allowed to follow their own conscience and to live as they please.

Pork isn’t the only product being sold today, which wasn’t sold only a couple of months ago; the same goes for alcohol. A short while ago, extremists - be they Sunni or Shiite - ruled Baghdad. They made it impossible for people to sell let alone drink alcohol. Now that order has returned, however, more supermarkets are offering alcohol to customers and those customers are buying it.

It are all signs of the improvements in Iraq. The last year has been great for Iraqis. All kinds of shops are opened; peace and stability do that. When militias had a go at each other on the streets of Baghdad, people did not take the risk to start a new company. Now that peace and order have been restored, at least relatively, they’re quickly getting their act together however and new shops are created every day.

Does this all mean that Iraq will still be stable two years from now? Of course not. But it’s undeniable that a lot of progress has been made. The next US President should take that into consideration; leaving Iraq will undoubtedly result in mass bloodshed and chaos once again. It’s a fragile peace, but it’s a peace. It took the US and Iraq several years to get here, but the risk of losing it all is too big to withdraw prematurely.

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1 Chuck Norton

July 3, 2008 @ 5:01 pm CEST

And to think that the Democrats have tried to defund the war and tried to force the president to pull out of Iraq time and time and time again. If successful not only would that have resulted in a loss for the United States, for which the left genuinely didn’t care if we did lose. Millions of Iraqi’s who threw their hat in with us would have had their throats cut if the Democratic leadership won the votes and the left made it crystal clear that they could have cared less if that happened as well. Fortunately the left proved just a few votes shy of causing such a slaughter. It is a reminder that no votes are more important than votes cast for the House and the Senate.

2 RRRocks

July 3, 2008 @ 5:17 pm CEST

The surge is working. Actually I give credit to this to the democrats or those more likely to be opposed to the war. They said all along that we needed many more troops in the country then were there now.

I have said in the past the United States is not in the business of nation building and the only examples we had to draw on were those that were used after WW2. In fact Bremmer had an outline of that very document laying on his desk for months and it was used as a guide to occupying and rebuilding a country.

The Bush administration was way too slow to act and they were resistant to accepting and bringing into the fold Democrats who have the best interests of this nation at heart as well as do the GOP.

Had he done this. Had he embraced the Democrats instead of trying to marginalize them and paint them unpatriotic for power we would be so much better off today.

So I give the democrats their due. They saw this. They understood more then did Bush what was needed to make things work in Iraq. They just didn’t want it too. At least now in my opinion after this november.

I have seen rumblings around the net that now the Obama faithful are thinking we are not going to pull out of Iraq as he planned because of this advance.

3 Chuck Norton

July 3, 2008 @ 5:36 pm CEST

Well RRRocks its like I said in my blog http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2007/04/22/random-thoughts-on-don-imus-and-others/

The Democrats wanted Rumsfeld replaced – they got it. The Democrats wanted new generals – they got it. The Democrats wanted a new strategy – they got it. The Democrats wanted more troops – they got it. The Democrats wanted the violence lowered – they got it; the surge is working well. The Result: The Democrats are spreading the message that nothing has changed and they want a pull out. Victory will not be tolerated. —
Let us not forget that the Democrats escalated their calls to withdrawal after all of their demands were met…. and the efforts to force an early withdrawal escalated to a frenzy when it looked like the surge was working. Keep in mind that it was John McCain who led the charge to get a new strategy in Iraq, as he was making these points well before anyone. After seeing how the Democrats behaved after the surge began, the fact that they wanted to force us to lose could not be more clear. They knew an early withdrawal would have resulted in a mass slaughter. They didn’t care.

4 RRRocks

July 3, 2008 @ 7:28 pm CEST

Chuck I do agree with you on their calls for a pull out.

I have always believed that the Democrats seized upon the war in Iraq as a winning strategy to take back government and did any and everything they could to do so.

The problem has been that had Bush simply included them in the war planning, staging and made this Americas war then the democrats could not have pegged it as Bush’s war or the GOP’s war.

So I do not mind giving them credit. However Barak Obama is now saying that mabey he might not leave Iraq at all.

Get that? The one who campaigned and won the nomination on ending the war and coming home now has his surrogate saying that well things change and mabey we might not come home now.

You might visit Polimom.com shes got an interesting op up on Obama’s hedging on pulling out of Iraq now.

5 Chuck Norton

July 3, 2008 @ 7:58 pm CEST

RRRocks - it was 3 months after the Iraq war started when the dems started reversing themselves and started calling for pull out, war for Haliburton and all that nonsense. Include them in the war planning you asked (as if it justified their disgraceful behavior) - maybe if they werent so partisan at the expense of the mission and the country - maybe if the Democrat leadership like Dick Durbin wasnt comparing our troops to Stalin, Pol-pot and nazi’s - maybe if Harry Ried was giving aid and comfort to the enemy by saying "the war is lost". - Maybe if Jack Murtha wasnt wrongfully accusing our marines of being cold blooded murderers - maybe if the democrats werent giving propaganda coup after propaganda coup to the enemy with their grossly irresponsible statements - maybe if Democrats weren’t releasing classified information to the New York Times - Maybe they would have had more seats at the table. Now that the war is nearly won - "success has many fathers" more and more Democrats will adopt Bush’s position on the war and will start to claim the credit for the success that they tried so hard to sabotage.