Just about anything can happen in Iraq. The Anbar Awakening may not last. Empowered Sunnis in that province may end up gunning for the Shia for all anyone knows.

But if anything can happen, it may just yet last. Iraqi Kurds fought a pointless civil war in the 1990s after they were liberated from Saddam Hussein before they matured into the political grown-ups they are today. The Lebanese fought an Iraq-style civil war for fifteen years, but almost none – not even Hezbollah – want to go back to that even after the Syrian regime has spent years trying to get them fighting again.

Iraqis have disappointed and made suckers of many of us. But they aren’t robots of perpetual war any more than the Kurds or Lebanese were.

Totten links to a good article putting Phantom Thunder in context.

As you evaluate the still nascent “surge”, read about the decline in a Qaeda operations, and contemplate the decline in civilian casualties. Not to mention my idea of a fine kill ratio:

But civilian deaths occur. U.S. military officials said two pre-dawn raids Saturday in Shiite-dominated Sadr City in eastern Baghdad killed 26 “terrorists” and captured 17 fighters with links to Iran. U.S. forces said they opened fire on fighters detonating roadside bombs or firing guns and rocket-propelled grenades from buildings and from behind parked cars.

No U.S. casualties were reported.