I fell out of my chair: NYT acknowledges success of Iraqi surge in Basra

Unbelievable.

BASRA, Iraq — Three hundred miles south of Baghdad, the oil-saturated city of Basra has been transformed by its own surge, now seven weeks old.

In a rare success, forces loyal to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki have largely quieted the city, to the initial surprise and growing delight of many inhabitants who only a month ago shuddered under deadly clashes between Iraqi troops and Shiite militias.

(The New York Times)

Well, at least the success is "rare." It's not like most of the country is doing better as with Basra. Well actually it is but let's stick with the positive in our assessment of the Times.

Okay, let's not. The story misses the bigger picture entirely. Though it mentions that Sadrists accuse Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of engineering the crackdown on the Mahdi Army as a "cynical" political move, the Times overlooks the manner in which the nation is uniting under Maliki. The crackdown on Shiite militias was a prerequisite to a unified Iraq, and this operation represents a huge step in that direction.

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