Arise Mesopotamia!

Okay. So this was over a week ago, but I thought it was well worth a post.

"There is an interesting piece of graffiti on a bridge near Basra. A fleeing militiaman has scrawled “We'll be back”; underneath an Iraqi soldier has scribbled in reply “And we'll be waiting for you”."

"The Shia militias, the Jaish al- Mahdi, who controlled large parts of Basra until March this year, has now gone and instead the city is firmly under the grip of Iraq's new security forces, in whom the coalition has invested so much training. They re-established control in April, in an operation romantically named “The Charge of the Knights”, systematically clearing the city with British and American support, confiscating illegal weapons and arresting the violent gangs whose combination of criminality and vicious extremism was making life a misery for so many of Basra's people."

[---]

"A recent poll showed that only 8 per cent now regard security as their main concern; 80 per cent have confidence in the Iraqi security forces to protect them. Women are free to walk the streets uncovered and to wear Western dress should they so choose."

Understand that Basra is THE port city in Iraq. It is THE sole location through which goods destined for and coming from foreign markets are shipped (at least those that are shipped via ocean going cargo). This turn of events is THE most important news to come out of Iraq yet. It means that Iraq is ready for business and their economy is about to take off.

To wit.

Yup. If I have the stamina and the money I will be in Iraq before I leave this world. I simply must see it's ancient heritage. The birth place of civilization - Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Garden of Eden and all that.

Did I ever tell you that way back when, my then husband and I tried to visit Iraq, the place of his birth. His father met us in Beirut and begged us not to set foot in Iraq. Although Saddam Hussein hadn't quite made it to the throne yet, he was already in command and had begun his long reign of carnage and terror. When my ex had left Iraq, ostensibly on a holiday, he was actually serving in the Iraqi armed forces. He never went back, choosing instead to apply (from Germany) for immigrant status to Canada. Ergo, as far as Papa Saddam was concerned, he was a deserter and that's why my father-in-law was afraid and begged us not to go to Iraq. My ex was also entertaining the idea of returning for a visit just shortly after the regime was toppled, but then the civil war broke out and he nixed that idea. But damn it. This time. There is nothing to stop either him or me from going.