"Good news? What good news?!?"

By way of The Strata-Sphere:

In an unprecedented step, a top leader of the pro-US tribal alliance in Anbar Province traveled to Sadr City Tuesday to meet with leaders of the Sadrist current.
Sheikh Hamid al-Hayis, who leads the armed wing of the US-backed movement known as the Anbar Awakening, or the Anbar Salvation Council, held a rare meeting with Sadrist leaders in Baghdad’s Sadr City, the bastion of support for the young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and stronghold of the Mahdi Army.

“This meeting is a message to Iraqi politicians to get rid of their differences and to seek real reconciliation,” Hayis said, according to the AFP.

“We are trying to pressure (the government) to make political changes for the sake of the Iraqi people who are drowning in the blood of their sons,” Hayis added.

“This visit shows that Iraqi tribes are standing side by side and they are the nail in the coffin of the abhorrent sectarianism which has split our country,” said Shi’a Sheikh Malik Sewadi al-Mohammedawi, whom AFP identifies as the head of one of Sadr City’s most influential tribes.

…

AFP reports that the participants in Tuesday’s meeting called for “improved national security services, for holding internationally monitored provincial council elections, and for ‘calling any killer of Iraqis a terrorist who has to be fought’.”

In a statement issued by the two groups at the end of the discussions also affirmed the unity and sovereignty of Iraq and called for building up the country’s armed forces on a professional and national basis, Radio Sawa Net reports in Arabic.

And from a FA reader comes an opinion piece by Frederick Kagan

The MSM continues to under-report the positive, and highlight the negative.

White flag Democrats surrender on timetable withdrawal deadline.

Army colonel's gamble pays off in Iraq

200

Untold stories of successes

Things are tough, but never hopeless. Steely-resolve and a positive outlook can move mountains. If our enemies are tough and determined, we simply have to be that much tougher and more determined.

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