Normality in Iraq

If it bleeds, it leads. If it doesn't, it's often forgotten. Still, it's interesting to read this NY Times reporter's account of returning to Iraq after a two year absence to find a country he barely recognizes.

...When I left Baghdad two years ago, the nation’s social fabric seemed too shredded to ever come together again. The very worst had lost its power to shock. To return now is to be jarred in the oddest way possible: by the normal, by the pleasant, even by hope. The questions are jarring, too. Is it really different now? Is this something like peace or victory? And, if so, for whom: the Americans or the Iraqis?...