IRAQ THE MODEL: Notes From Baghdad IRAQ THE MODEL: Notes From Baghdad

IRAQ THE MODELNotes From Baghdad: Open liquor stores and other signs of the surge's success. How great is it, that a couple of guys, MOHAMMED FADHIL AND OMAR FADHIL, in Iraq can blog about what is really going on there, and it can be republished in the WSJ?

They paint a fairly positive picture of what the Iraqi government is calling "Operation Imposing the Law." The terrorists on both sides are mostly laying low, hiding among the populace, and their leadership has fled, some to outside the country: Syria for the Sunnis and Iran for the Shi'a. There are no safe havens now, not even Mosques - why shouldn't Muslim Iraqi security forces be able to go in and check out their places of worship? Also, stores are reopening and people moving back into mixed neighborhoods, reacquring their old homes.

One of the more interesting points is that some liquor stores are reopening. This is significant because the major force behind Sunni terrorism is Wahhabi fanaticism. And, as in Afganistan, it is they who are trying to bring everyone back to a 7th Century (CE) morality, where alcohol is forbidden (as is music, female skin, etc.) For the first time in a long time, the liquor store owners are not (as) scared that Muslim fundamentalists will destroy their businesses.