Security Check

This is the first sentence of Roger Cohen's NY Times column today: "Are things getting better or worse in Iraq?"

This is the last: "Things are getting better in Iraq."

In between you'll find largely anecdotal (nonetheless valid, and first-hand) observations supporting the conclusion. It's behind the subscription wall, but here are the main points of Cohen's scorecard on Iraq.

The Iraqi Army is "...starting to make its presence felt. ...now represents more than Pentagon wishful thinking."

"We have defeated 70 percent of the terrorists, and I hope to defeat them all by the end of 2006," said Lieutenant Colonel Abbas Mahnal of the IA 1st Brigade, 6th Division, which "owns the battlefield," as American officers put it, in much of western Baghdad.

Security: "The checkpoints, and the concrete blast walls mushrooming by the day, reflect the fact nobody has violence under control."

And the potential for Sunni/Shiite civil war: "a big minus." - an understatement.

However,

The Sunni vote: "At Abu Ghraib, a name now synonymous with some of the worst of the many U.S. blunders in Iraq, there were no polling stations in the January 2005 legislative elections, 14 for the October vote on a constitution and 23 in the Dec. 15 election. Those numbers represent a breakthrough in swinging Sunnis behind the new Iraq."

For the Sunni shift he credits U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad - an Afghan-born Muslim: "If in the next couple of months a national unity government is formed, including the Sunnis, that achievement will be in large part his. The Khalilzad presence is a plus."

Baghdad: "...quieter than it was; quiet here is a measure of headway."

The Airport Road: "...it's safer than it was. Patrols by the embryonic Iraqi Army have slashed attacks. Score one for the upside."

But...

"Garbage abounds. Even at midnight in winter the stench of a market in western Baghdad where animals are slaughtered is overwhelming. Why? The guts are left in the road. Many Iraqis remain passive; they do not yet believe in the future. That's not good."

Economic stats - "a stable currency, growing reserves"

But...

Electricity: "intermittent - a reflection of sabotage and more American mistakes."

...and Oil production: "has not reached prewar levels"

As for the neighbors: "Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran will not help America in Iraq."

And as for the outcome: "Anyone who is certain about the outcome in Iraq is wrong."

Which brings us to the bottom line:

"Is insecurity prevailing, as the walls suggest, or freedom, as embodied in those posters? It's the latter, by a small margin. Things are getting better in Iraq."

The country is not the Bush administration: loving or hating what America is doing there cannot be a blind reflection of partisan politics.