The news media is having to report on the changes in Iraq and these reports continue to paint a stunning picture of change:

The reconstruction is part of a rebuilding boom in al Qaim, a district along Iraq’s border with Syria that was turned into a depopulated ruin by street combat less than two years ago.

Al Qaim is part of Anbar province, a vast western desert region that is now Exhibit A when U.S. President George W. Bush is looking for good news to describe in Iraq.

Nothing like showing real evidence of the changes in Iraq – no matter how deep the denial on the left any of this his actually happened. Here is the picture from a year ago:

Like many in the Albu Mahal tribe, Sheikh Mausuf fled al Qaim with his family in 2005, when militants from Sunni Islamist al Qaeda in Iraq took over the area.

From 2003 until last year, Anbar was the heartland of the Sunni Arab insurgency and the most dangerous part of Iraq.

Al Qaim, where the Euphrates River pours in from across the Syrian border, was a battleground for most of 2005, with Marines battling insurgents street to street.

Nearly half of its 15,000 homes, many holding families of 30 people or more, were damaged. More than 400 were reduced completely to rubble. Whole blocks of stone and concrete houses still look like they were hit by an earthquake.

Bleak, endless strife. A place run by terrorists with the support of locals. And now:

For a Reuters reporter who was embedded in al Qaim during the height of combat in 2005, the quiet now is uncanny.

The current battalion of Marines has been based in the district for four months. They patrol the streets on foot from small bases inside the towns but have yet to engage in a single major firefight, fire one live artillery round or summon their first air strike.

They have lost just one Marine killed by a roadside bomb.

Many of them joke uneasily that they are bored.

…

Foreign fighters who once streamed in from the Syrian border seem to have vanished: Bohm’s Marines have encountered just one.

There are skeptics and professional handwringers and those who fantasize all is not as it seems, and yet there Anbar stands. A bright future for Iraq as an American ally and an enemy of al Qaeda. Only fools deny the sea change. Fools Americans will not follow into the depths of pessimism and surrender. As of now, we – America – have no reason to hope the Democrats and far left are right about Iraq And we are understanding they are more than likely wrong across the board on the matter. We can risk a hint of hope Bush is right. What a difference a year makes.