ConservativeINC

Here’s a story from the Washington Post that tells of some more good news coming out of Iraq.

The drop in violence caused by the U.S. troop increase in Iraq has prompted refugees to begin returning to their homes, American and Iraqi officials said Wednesday.

Tahsin al-Sheikhly, an Iraqi government spokesman, said 46,030 displaced Iraqis had returned last month from outside the country to their homes in the capital. He declined to comment on how the government determined those statistics.

“People are starting to return to their homes,” said Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, commander of U.S. troops in Baghdad. “There’s no question about it.”

Such assessments run counter to the overall trend detailed in a recent report by the Iraqi Red Crescent, which said the number of internally displaced people had more than quadrupled over the past year, reaching 2.3 million by the end of September.

Fil said the military had observed a different pattern, with 200 families recently returning to their neighborhoods in the northwestern part of the city.

“There was a time in Baghdad when there was a lot of migration,” he said. “That has for some time now largely come to a halt.”

So why are these people coming back to their homes? Is this just so they can reap great tax benefits by living in a low tax haven for a certain period of time or is it something significantly more important? It is the latter and there are two more stories that you need to read.

The first one is a story that was pretty much buried by the New York Times (Rush Limbaugh said it appeared on page A-19).

American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, a top American general said today, allowing American troops involved in the “surge” to depart as planned.

Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of United States forces in Baghdad, also said that American troops had yet to clear some 13 percent of the city, including Sadr City and several other areas controlled by Shiite militias. But, he said, “there’s just no question” that violence had declined since a spike in June.

“Murder victims are down 80 percent from where they were at the peak,” and attacks involving improvised bombs are down 70 percent, he said.

General Fil attributed the decline to improvements in the Iraqi security forces, a cease-fire ordered by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, the disruption of financing for insurgents, and, most significant, Iraqis’ rejection of “the rule of the gun.”

These are amazing numbers and can only be explained by the change in tactics we initiated with the surge. The surge came to its apex at about the same time violence peaked out. And now violence is down, the Sunni terrorist group is out of Baghdad, and things are improving so much that people are coming back to their homes.

“The Iraqi people have just decided that they’ve had it up to here with violence,” he said, while noting that their demands for electricity, water and jobs have intensified.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of displaced families are returning to their homes, but a majority of them are still afraid to go back to neighborhoods now segregated by sect. “Clearly,” General Fil said, “it will take some time for Baghdad to restore itself to what it was.”

He and other military commanders have maintained for months that the conditions for national reconciliation have been met. They argue that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni extremist group that American intelligence agencies say is foreign-led, has been weakened. They cite in particular the rise of the American-supported citizen volunteers — 67,000 nationwide, according to military figures.

Now that we have given some security to the war torn country we are going to start building it back up. These numbers are encouraging because it shows that there are many tens of thousands of Iraqis who are willing to risk their lives for their country’s future. One of the biggest stumbling blocks may soon be removed if the next story comes to fruition.

Senior religious leaders in Iraq are preparing to sign an unprecedented “fatwa against violence” that will help reconcile the rival Sunni and Shia branches of Islam and herald new hopes for peace in the war-torn country.

The fatwa, negotiated by the peace organisation run by the Anglican “Vicar of Baghdad” Canon Andrew White, will mark a significant move towards a settlement between the Shia and Sunni communities and ease the process towards a political solution.

It comes in the context of plummeting fatalities among both coalition troops and civilians and is a further vindication of the“surge” security strategy of US General and Iraq commander David Petraeus.

Canon White, who will tonight be presented with the first Woolf Institute “Pursuer of Peace Award” in London in recognition of his work in the Middle East, said the fatwa was to be signed by Sheikh Ahmed al Kubaisi, acknowledged by Iraqis as the senior Sunni religious authority and whose Friday sermons from Dubai reach 20 million, and Ayatollah Sayyid Ammar Abu Ragheef, chief of staff for Grand Ayatollah Ali al
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Sistani, leader of the Shia community in Iraq and beyond. The fatwa, which will have the equivalence of statutory authority for all Shia and Sunni Muslims in Iraq, is the culmination of years of dialogue with religious leaders behind the scenes in Iraq and throughout the region by Canon White. It follows a meeting in Cairo in August organised by Canon White’s Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, at which the two Islamic leaders were present and where they agreed to “end terrorist violence” and to work towards the fatwa.

This is the Holy Grail for Iraqi success. If we can manage to get the Sunnis and Shia seriously working together we will be making a giant step towards total victory in that country. Iraq is being ruled by little city-states run by sectarian militias and/or terrorists. This fatwa could end the violence in Iraq.

But, like Mr Limbaugh said on his show today, the greatest share of credit should go to our military. They fought on even though the terrorists used homicide bombers and IEDs, even though they lost support from half of the American population, even though all hope looked lost. Thousands of our bravest have given their lives and many thousands more are permanently disabled so that Iraq could taste democracy. If their major goal is achieved, that Iraq becomes a functioning democracy, America will be a much safer place because the jihadis will have lost a major destabilizing force in the region. Good work guys. BigT

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