More surprises

Juan Cole:

The "surge" or escalation of US troop presence was intended to provide enough social peace in Baghdad at least for the al-Maliki government to make progress on the benchmarks. But the "surge" hasn't made a dent in car bombings. Its main achievement was to cut the number of death squad killings resulting in bodies in the streets of Baghdad from 70-80 to 20-30 most days.

Impressive.