Iraq is Better

The war in Iraq, or even just Iraq for that matter, has not gotten much news as of late. Recall in 2006 the daily reports of explosions and casualties and deaths. Not anymore. Why? Are the new agencies so weary of the violence that they have ceased reporting? No way. There is no news because there is no news. Read Dexter Filkins piece in the NYT. It is truly astounding the transformation that has taken place there. He writes:

When I left Iraq in the summer of 2006, after living three and a half years here following the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, I believed that evil had triumphed, and that it would be many years before it might be stopped. Iraq, filled with so many people living so close together, nurturing dark and unknowable grievances, seemed destined for a ghastly unraveling.

And now, in the late summer of 2008, comes the calm. Violence has dropped by as much as 90 percent. A handful of the five million Iraqis who fled their homes — one-sixth of all Iraqis — are beginning to return. The mornings, once punctuated by the sounds of exploding bombs, are still. Is it possible that the rage, the thirst for revenge, the sectarian furies, have begun to fade? That Iraqis have been exhausted and frightened by what they have seen?

Read the whole thing.

Our prayers, I am sure, are still needed for the ravaged country and its people. Continue to pray that inroads are made with the Gospel.