The transformation of Baghdad

Washington Post:

Iraqis are returning to their homeland by the hundreds each day, by bus, car and plane, encouraged by weeks of decreased violence and increased security, or compelled by visa and residency restrictions in neighboring countries and the depletion of their savings.

Those returning make up only a tiny fraction of the 2.2 million Iraqis who have fled Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. But they represent the largest number of returnees since February 2006, when sectarian violence began to rise dramatically, speeding the exodus from Iraq.

Many find a Baghdad they no longer recognize, a city altered by blast walls and sectarian rifts. Under the improved security, Iraqis are gingerly testing how far their new liberties allow them to go. But they are also facing many barriers, geographical and psychological, hardened by violence and mistrust.

Days after she returned from Syria, 23-year-old Melal al-Zubaidi and a friend went to the market on a pleasant night to eat ice cream. It was a short walk, yet unthinkable only a month ago for a woman in the capital. Still, her parents were nervous, and Zubaidi wore a head scarf and an ankle-length skirt to avoid angering Islamic extremists.

The Zubaidis, a Shiite Muslim family, have yet to pass another boundary. When they fled Iraq five months ago, a Sunni family took over their large house in Dora, a sprawling neighborhood in southern Baghdad. When the Zubaidis returned this month, they were too scared to ask the new occupants to leave. So they rented a small apartment in Mashtal, a mostly Shiite district.

"Security is better," said Melal al-Zubaidi, who has a degree in engineering. "But we still have fear inside ourselves."

Over the past two months, the level of nearly every type of violence -- car bombings, assassinations, suicide attacks -- has dropped from earlier this year. The downturn is a result of a confluence of factors: This year, 30,000 U.S. military reinforcements were funneled into Baghdad and other areas. Sunni tribes and insurgents turned against the al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgent group and partnered with U.S. forces to patrol neighborhoods and towns. Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, seeking to improve his movement's image, ordered his Mahdi Army militia to freeze operations.

...

Even the pessimist have to admit that the new security measures have worked. The blast walls and the dividers have also made the enemy's objectives more difficult. It is not clear why this family is not taking advantage of the governments help in removing squatters from their former home. It is not like they would have to throw the squatters out by themselves. The Iraqi government has been insistent that houses go back to their rightful owners and has been willing to use its troops to secure that point.

The article is being overly generous in its description of Sadr's motives. He retreated as soon as the surge was announced and when he tried a brief comeback his operations were already in tatters. More importantly, with the success of the surge the reason for his militia's existences no longer exist. The government and the US troops have successfully stop most of the attacks on the Shia that were perpetrated by al Qaeda and its Sunni allies, most of which have rallied to our cause.