The Associate Press reports that deaths among U.S. forces and even Iraqi civilians fell dramatically last month to their lowest levels in more than a year.
The decline signaled a U.S. success in bringing down violence in Baghdad and surrounding regions since Washington completed its infusion of 30,000 more troops – known more commonly as “the surge” – on June 15.
This bit of good news is a hopeful sign for the future of Iraq, and lends further credence to the notion that the U.S. must stay in Iraq and defeat the jihadists there. Failure to do so, it has been argued in these pages, would likely invite more bloodshed.
