Our view: Latest reports from Iraq are positive, but will the trend last?

Don't go throwing the confetti just yet, but it appears that conditions in Iraq may be improving, if just a little bit. Sectarian violence has decreased and peace, or what passes for it in that part of the world, has returned to some parts of the country.

This development is in large part due to President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq and implement aggressive counterinsurgency tactics. What happens as the so-called surge ends will determine if his gamble was the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement in Iraq or just a pacific prelude in an otherwise open-ended conflict.

We have asserted for some time that the United States has done everything it can for the Iraqi people. From deposing their dictator and unseating their brutal ruling class to creating the conditions for democracy (not to mention rebuilding their infrastructure and security forces), America has dutifully, if not always effectively, tried to do for Iraq what the Iraqis seem unable, or perhaps unwilling, to do for themselves.

As the country lurched toward civil war, however, it became evident to us and many others that the problems of that country were far more complex and intractable than anyone, much less our commander in chief, had anticipated when we all too blithely marched into Iraq nearly five years ago.

In the spring of this year we called for the president to bring the troops home within a year. While that is not going to happen, we still believe that our military commitments there should end sooner rather than later.

That said, the good news coming out of Iraq in recent weeks is based on something more than just the unfounded optimism of neoconservatives.

The civil war, which only months ago seemed certain to rend the country into a thousand sectarian pieces, has suddenly become, if not quiet, at least less spectacular.

More important to the security interests of the United States, some military officials are now cautiously optimistic that we've gained the upper hand against al-Qaida in Iraq. Stephen Biddle with the Council on Foreign Relations, in Iraq to evaluate the situation for Gen. David Petraeus, stated that security gains are being made "on a large-scale basis throughout much of the country."

That includes Baghdad. Whereas Gen. Petraeus' September testimony to Congress focused on the gains made in Al Anbar province, the Iraqi capital now seems to be benefiting from the surge, as well. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki even went so far as to say that Sunni-Shiite violence in Baghdad "is ebbing remarkably." That sunny outlook is substantiated in reports from The Associated Press, which note that the sounds of war in Baghdad have become rare. Americans are even patrolling parts of the city that were previously off-limits to the U.S. military.

Of course, we've heard this all before. In the Bush administration's worldview, we're always just about to turn the corner in Iraq. But it is telling that the major news story to come out of Iraq recently has focused not on car bombings and sectarian violence but the controversy over military contractors.

But the surge has run its course. The current total of 20 brigades will be reduced to 15 by next summer, a reduction of about 30,000 troops. What happens when they're gone will be the true test of the surge's lasting effects.

We've been critical of the war and the judgment of the people running it. We stand by that criticism. But it would be wrong to ignore these accomplishments, some of which have been purchased with the blood of local service members.

All Americans should hope that this progress is real. If not, we can expect many more months, if not years, of bloody conflict that will make it more difficult to begin our already overdue withdrawal from Iraq.