The first time I visited Baghdad, I only stayed for a week. The place stressed me out. The surge was only just then beginning, and though I never was shot at personally, I often heard the sound of gunfire in the background. One night, shadowy militiamen stalked me and a U.S. Army unit I was out on patrol with. Car bombs exploded miles away, but sounded as though they were detonated just a few blocks away. You have no idea, really, how terrifyingly loud those things are until you hear one yourself.

I left Baghdad and headed out to Anbar Province – which just months earlier was one of the most dangerous places on earth – because I wanted to relax. That part of Iraq had just quieted down for the first time since Fallujah exploded in 2004. The big question on everyone’s mind in 2007 was whether or not it was possible to export the Anbar Awakening – the reconciliation between Iraqi tribes and Americans who forged a united front against terrorism – to a gigantic and hypercomplex city like Baghdad.

Nobody knew the answer, and many had doubts. I had doubts, too. But the doubters were wrong. The Awakening, or something that looks a lot like it, has now swept across every last corner of Iraq’s capital city.

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