is the headline for this article from yesterday’s Washington Post.

In the days that followed the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine, Iraq seemed within a hair’s breadth of civil war. But an aggressive U.S. and Kurdish diplomatic campaign appears for now to have coaxed the country back from open conflict between Sunni Arabs and Shiites, according to Iraqi politicians and Western diplomats speaking in interviews on Monday.

“Localized difficulties also persist, but I think, at the strategic level, this crisis — a mosque attack leading to civil war — is over,” Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said in a telephone interview. “It was a serious crisis. I believe that Iraq came to the brink and came back.”

As the article demonstrates the future of Iraq is still very much in question but one thing is certain; numerous people are working very hard and risking their lives in an attempt to build a free and democratic Iraq.

As the terrorists and extremists attempt to incite civil war and Mayhem men like ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad (who has received far too little credit), and Jalal Talabani (the Iraqi President), American and coalition servicemen and women, Iraqi soldiers, and policemen, Iraqi journalists, as well as average citizens in Iraq are doing everything they can to hold this country together.

I had a correspondence the other day with an Iraqi journalist who told me:

We’ve been fighting and fighting and fighting and nothing happened. Nothing is improved. Everything goes from bad to worse. No glimpse of hope. Believe me I am not trying to surrender to the criminals. I am doing my job as a reporter and I am doing my best to make my country become better.

How do you respond to that?

The only thing I can say is you must continue to fight. You must stop these evil people who are trying to take over your country. We as Americans are behind you and millions are praying for you. Over 2,000 of our military have layed down their lives for you. No matter what you believe about our politics or our government’s motives, those 2,000 men and women believed they were fighting for Iraqi freedom and American freedom. Tens of thousands of Iraqi’s have died in this war. We can not let their deaths be in vain.

Others blogging on this:

Decision08
The Indepundit