A "Bright Day" for Iraq?

Nuri al-Maliki, the somewhat lame duck Iraqi Prime Minister, has called today "a bright day" for Iraq, saying "It's a day that Iraq gained back its sovereignty. Iraq is now its own master."

Well, maybe. There are still close to 50,000 US troops there, after all, and the formal end of combat5 operations today is a bit of an afterthought since the last combat brigade left earlier in the month.

President Obama will address the end of combat operations, though we certainly haven't seeen the last US casualty in Iraq. At least he won't don a flight suit, land on an aircraft carrier, and declare "Mission Accomplished," as was done the last time we declared combat operations ended (a tad prematurely).

Marc Lynch offers his take: "Why the Iraq Milestone Matters."

Juan Cole, meanwhile, writes "The Speech President Obama Should Give about the Iraq War (But Won't)."

Unlike Cole, I'm not sure I'm ready to assess all the rights and wrongs of the war just yet. It was a war of choice, and lasted longer than its proponents ever dreamed, but it did end a brutal; regime, albeit at high cost in Iraqi as well as American blood. Iraq is far more stabilized than it was a few years ago, but months after the elections, it still has no government. Perhaps it's best to reserve a final verdict, or to remember the reply reportedly given by Zhou Enlai when asked what he thought of the French Revolution: "It's too soon to tell."