I’ve been quite critical of the Washington Post’s coverage of the fighting in Basra and related skirmishing. As is often the case, though, the Post’s editorial page succeeds where its news pages fail. In fact, this editorial about Basra is not only unobjectionable, it actually assists me in trying to evaluate what the fighting meant and where things stand now that it has subsided.

The editors begin by rejecting the ultra-negative view propagated in much of the MSM, including the Post itself:

Those who portray every development in Iraq as negative described the fighting as proof of worsening sectarianism or as a negation of the improved security achieved in the past six months. In fact, it was neither. After a cease-fire Sunday, the fighting in Basra and elsewhere in Iraq quickly subsided; even with the temporary spike in violence, Iraqi and U.S. fatalities in March were one-third to one-half of what they were a year ago.

But this is not to say that the fighting was a triumph for the government:

Mr. Maliki's initiative. . .failed to achieve his objective, which was the disarmament of elements of the Mahdi Army and other militias that have carved up Basra since the withdrawal of British forces, at the expense of the Iraqi government.

At the same, Sadr and his militiamen do not appear to have prevailed either:

While the balance of power in the city is now unclear, the judgment by some Western analysts that the cease-fire was a triumph for the Mahdi Army seems premature. Similar assessments after inconclusive U.S. battles with the Mahdi Army in 2004 proved unfounded, and in this instance Mr. Sadr was obliged to publicly disown "anyone carrying a weapon and targeting government institutions."

In short, the results were mixed. But “the fact that an Iraqi government commonly described as impotent and inert now is willing and able to fight Shiite militias is a step in the right direction."