Yes I know I obsess about Iraq these days, but all the other news is actually sort of boring and not as potentially history shaping as Iraq could be. The pattern of news I expected to see coming from the Surge and Awakening has materialized, and it is a pattern that will shape public opinion across this globe and be nearly impossible to stop. The pattern has two elements. The first are stories recounting al-Qaeda’s atrocities against Muslims:

A total of 20 decomposed bodies for several family members buried in separate mass graves were discovered by anti-al-Qaida militants and civilians near the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said Monday.

…

The group excavated several small mass graves, where they found 20 bodies for families, including four children and three women, the source said, adding that each grave contained one family.

…

The desert area where the bodies found has long been under the control of militants affiliated to al-Qaida organization, the source added.

The horrors of al-Qaeda will be documented for years to come. There are thousands of stories for the media to cover and expose the evil, brutal nature of the Islamo Fascists to the world. And even if the Western media continues to balk at this responsibility to inform, the regional and Muslim news will not – and that is why the image of al-Qaeda will be fixed in history as a scourge against Islam.

And the opposing stories of Muslim heroes who stood up to al-Qaeda’s evil will also be rippling across the region. Bin Laden will not be the modern Saladin in these tales of heroism, people like this Iraqi will be playing that part:

ONE morning in late May, a former Iraqi military intelligence officer working as a US double agent walked up to the al-Qa’ida ruler of west Baghdad. The exchange of words, then bullets, that followed has transformed Amariyah, the city’s most volatile neighbourhood, into an unexpected haven of calm.

It may, according to US officers, be one of the most significant gunfights since the 2003 invasion, and its ripples are bringing local Sunni and Shia men together to fight terrorists and militia in other neighbourhoods.

The showdown went like this: “Hajji Sabah, isn’t it time you stopped already?” said Abu Abed Obeidi, a diminutive 37-year-old with a drooping moustache, tired eyes and a ready smile. “You have destroyed Amariyah.”

“Who are you?” Sabah, the Islamist emir, sneered. “We’re al-Qa’ida. I’ll kill you all and raze your homes.”

“You can try,” Mr Obeidi said. The emir drew his pistol, but his Glock 9mm jammed. As he turned to run, Mr Obeidi emptied his pistol into his back. His assault on al-Qa’ida had begun.

Amariyah has experienced a startling rebirth since that western-style shootout. In May its streets were filled with corpses being picked over by stray dogs. US troops ventured in rarely. When they did, they used heavily armoured vehicles, several of which were blown apart by mines.

Now the shops and cafes are open, and schoolchildren and women stroll the streets. Mr Obeidi’s men patrol on foot with US troops and Iraqi soldiers.

It has been a precarious journey from al-Qa’ida fiefdom to what US commanders see as a possible model for the future of Iraq. The process has not been made clearer by the mystique surrounding the enigmatic man at the centre of the revolt.

After the 2003 invasion, Mr Obeidi, a sniper and military intelligence major in Saddam Hussein’s army, briefly joined the Sunni resistance. Within a year he had grown disillusioned with al-Qa’ida, which had taken over the movement with the aim of sparking a civil war between Iraq’s Shia majority and Sunni minority.

In an abrupt about-face, he offered his services as a spy to the Americans. “I have a basic principle to fight anybody who is hurting my fellow citizens,” he said, surrounded by his uniformed gunmen in his large offices in Amariyah. “That’s why I co-operated in 2004 with the Americans and started to work against al-Qa’ida.”

He used his skills as a secret agent and former insurgent to infiltrate extreme Islamist groups. He has also built up a network of close comrades from Saddam’s sacked officer corps and the insurgency. This spring, dismayed by the failure of the Iraqi Government and its US allies to stem the bloodshed by al-Qa’ida, he decided to act directly himself.

I see this story repeated many times – it has all the features of a great epic piece. The dual in the street, the jammed gun, the defeat of evil. But this is just one of many stories of Iraqis standing up to al-Qaeda’s butchers and protecting their people, their communities. Why do people remember McCarthur, Eisenhower and Patton? Because surrounding them events changed in World War II that brought on success. It is no different in Iraq. Muslims will be cheering their new heroes – the ones who stood up to al-Qaeda. And al-Qaeda will take its place as being worse than the Great Satan America, in terms of killing and torturing Muslims.

And Muslims now know one other thing about America. We do wield great power and are deadly when we need to be. But unlike al-Qaeda we did not use that power to oppress and murder people, we used it (and the blood of our sons and daughters) to protect Iraqis. The Middle East is now quite aware we are not impotent or afraid, but that we actually restrain ourselves because we have this great power and do not wish to misuse it. The world view is changing in Iraq and the Middle East. And I don’t think any amount of spin from the liberal media here in the US can stop the transformation.