A New York times Reporter Finds A Different Iraq

U.S. Army Pfc. Nathaniel Owens provides security while members of the Provincial Reconstruction Team embedded with 25th Infantry Division tour a newly renovated fish market to assess the construction in Taji, Iraq, Sept. 7, 2008. Owens is assigned to the 25th Infantry Division's 2nd Battalion, 11th Field Artillery Regiment. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Daniel Herrera

Back in Iraq, Jarred By The Calm -- New York Times

BAGHDAD — At first, I didn’t recognize the place.

On Karada Mariam, a street that runs over the Tigris River toward the Green Zone, the Serwan and the Zamboor, two kebab places blown up by suicide bombers in 2006, were crammed with customers. Farther up the street was Pizza Napoli, the Italian place shut down in 2006; it, too, was open for business. And I’d forgotten altogether about Abu Nashwan’s Wine Shop, boarded up when the black-suited militiamen of the Mahdi Army had threatened to kill its owners. There it was, flung open to the world.

Two years ago, when I last stayed in Baghdad, Karada Mariam was like the whole of the city: shuttered, shattered, broken and dead.

Abu Nawas Park — I didn’t recognize that, either. By the time I had left the country in August 2006, the two-mile stretch of riverside park was a grim, spooky, deserted place, a symbol for the dying city that Baghdad had become.

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My Comment:The true test of stability in Iraq will be the provincial elections that are expected in the next few months. This will determine Iraq's eventual transition to a stable democracy, or a sectarian divided and failed state.