WHAT A DEVASTATING BLOW TO THE EUROLEFT SUCCESS WOULD BE, EH?

US buoyed by fall in Iraqi death attacks: Ordinary Iraqis and American commanders are becoming cautiously optimistic about security (Joshua Partlow and Naseer Nouri, November 4, 2007, The Observer)

From the shop owners selling cigarettes by the light of generators to the military commanders poring over aerial maps, Iraqis and Americans are striving to understand the sharp decrease in violence over the past months and what it might herald for the future of Iraq.

The number of attacks against US soldiers has fallen to levels not seen since before the February 2006 bombing of a Shia shrine in Samarra, which touched off waves of sectarian killing, according to US military statistics. In October, 39 soldiers died, the lowest level since March 2006. Unofficial Health Ministry figures suggest civilian deaths across Iraq rose last month compared with September, but the US military claimed that civilian deaths fell from about 2,800 in January to about 800 in October. [...]

In part, some credit the reduction to the six-month 'freeze' announced by the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on the activities of his Mahdi Army militia.

Both Iraqis and coalition soldiers are wrestling with a basic question: is the declining violence a lull in the war or the beginning of a long road to peace?