Has the tide turned?

Hammorabi, who has been consistently impatient with the current Iraqi government's inability to stem the tide of violence, strikes a very hopeful note on his blog today.

In spite of threats and intimidations by the terrorist and pro-Saddam groups more Iraqis are coming to help the Iraqi forces by providing information about strangers and or strange behaviours in their areas. The best example is the information which resulted in freeing of two kidnapped Iraqis in Omarah and arresting at least 7 terrorists working under the name of a humanitarian organization. They have been arrested after buying arms and explosives for their groups in Baghdad. The Iraqis need to do much more to clean their areas from the killers and the terrorists. The other factor which may helped a lot is the important documents which have been found in Falluja though there are strong indications that the terrorist groups have changed their plans, codes and tactics since then.

This is heartening news. As the Iraqis begin to see results from the information they provide, it will encourage them to provide even more - a self-reinforcing cycle that will result in more and more hope and less and less violence.

UPDATE: Powerline has a translated report of several successful operations of the Iraqi National Guard, the much-maligned guard that the press thinks is inept.

It seems to me that it's just possible that the Iraqi elections will be much less violent than the "experts" expect. Now wouldn't that be a surprise.