Iraq turns corner on reconciliation

Violence is DOWN dramatically in Iraq. Fewer American troops were killed in December than in any month except February 2004, and the rate of American deaths was actually the lowest since the war began. Civilian deaths across Iraq also appear to be falling, though numbers are far from reliable.

However you count it, though, whatever the final numbers are, the surge has worked. Given the past four years of dreadful violence, that is unreservedly good news, both for U.S. troops and for Iraq’s besieged citizens.

But the surge also appears to be working on another level, a potentially more durable one. The reason for raising the number of U.S. troops and pushing them into the neighborhoods was to give the Iraqi people and government time to work out their differences. Over the weekend, the government finally made progress.

On Saturday, parliament passed a law allowing some Baathists — members of Saddam Hussein’s ruling party — to return to government jobs. The U.S. decision to oust the Sunni elites shortly after the invasion resulted in years of sectarian violence.

The measure is one of several keys to stabilizing Iraq, along with finding a way to share oil revenues, holding new elections and forging constitutional reforms. The Iraq government’s inertia on those issues has long caused immense frustration in Washington and turned much of the country sour on the war.

On Saturday, the Iraq parliament moved for the first time since the surge began. The law, though more complicated than many would like, will allow thousands of Baathists to return to work for the government and to receive pensions.

“It’s an important step toward reconciliation,” said President Bush. “It’s an important sign that the leaders in that country must work together to meet the aspirations of the Iraqi people.”

Progress in Iraq has a habit of being temporary, and of being undermined by shifting alliances and allegiances, not to mention terrorists and insurgents. Still, recent advances provide hope in a place that hasn’t generated much.

The hope also comes in the form of “Iraqi solutions,” the subject of a long piece in The Washington Post last week. In short, the story said, “U.S. officials have made a virtue of necessity and have praised Iraqi ingenuity for finding different routes toward the same goals.”

Which means, for example, that oil revenues are being shared and provincial governments are working without action from parliament. Such a shift, led by Ambassador Ryan Crocker, represents a diplomatic counterpart to the military’s approach under Gen. David Petraeus.

Both have shown a flexibility absent for much of the war’s first years, and its first leaders.

Those strategies involve aspiring to the possible instead of the perfect and working toward what the Iraqis are willing to do rather than what America wants. That means progress has been slower and accomplishments far smaller, but there has been undeniable improvement and real accomplishment where for years there was only death and chaos.

At long last, there is a legitimate opportunity for Iraq’s government to begin to finally make some good on so much American money spent protecting them, and so many American deaths.