James Glanz of the New York Times, the chief peddler of the claim that the Iraqi government’s attack on the militia controlled by goon cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was a horrifying failures that called the entire surge into question, today files this dispatch from Baghdad:

 Iraq’s largest Sunni bloc has agreed to return to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s cabinet after a nine-month boycott, several Sunni leaders said on Thursday, citing a recently passed amnesty law and the Maliki government’s crackdown on Shiite militias as reasons for the move….[S]uch a return would represent a major political victory for Mr. Maliki in the midst of a military operation that has at times been criticized as poorly planned and fraught with risk.

To sum up, then. The Shiite government proved itself willing and able to take on the most powerful Shiite militia. As a result, it has brought the Sunni bloc back into the government, which is a major step on the road to national reconciliation. And this was made possible by the passage of an amnesty law that is a key step in the benchmarks established to gauge Iraq’s political progress.

James Glanz, you got some ‘splainin’ to do…