It's been four long years with almost no good news coming out of Iraq. But finally there are some signs of progress. And, believe it or not, I found it in this story:

"Three suicide bombers driving trucks rigged with tanks of toxic chlorine gas struck targets in heavily Sunni Anbar province including the office of a Sunni tribal leader opposed to al-Qaida. The attacks killed at least two people and sickened 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops, the U.S. military said Saturday. "

How is this good news?
Well, the part about people dying and getting sick obviously isn't the good part. Nor is it the fact that this is 1,800th story of violence in a row coming out of Iraq. No, it's this part that's good news:

"Police said the bomb was targeting the reception center of a tribal sheik who has denounced al-Qaida."

The Associated Press explains further:

"In the past year, some major Sunni tribes have broken with the al-Qaida-linked insurgents - a move that has led to a new sense of optimism among U.S. officials in Anbar.

Al-Maliki on Tuesday made his first trip to Anbar province, meeting with influential clan chiefs whom the U.S. and the Iraqi government are cultivating. He expressed optimism the violence could be stopped and promised the area would not be forgotten as U.S. and Iraqi forces focus on a security sweep to stop the sectarian violence in Baghdad."

I don't know that Maliki's optimism is warranted and I certainly don't think we've turned a corner. But it is exceedingly good news that the Sunnis are now fighting each other.

It is welcome news for three reasons:

1. The local Iraqi Sunnis might root out Al Qaeda in Iraq for us.

2. Better that they fight each other than us (this is over-simplistic, but in the case of the Sunni insurgency, true enough).

3. Al Qaeda most likely wouldn't bomb the local Sunnis leaders if they didn't think the Iraqi Sunnis might want to cut a deal with the Iraqi central government or the US military (which would be great news for our position in Iraq, for the hopes of bringing down violence in the country and in isolating Al Qaeda).

This combined with the fact that the Shiite militias have not engaged us so far is the first sign of positive momentum in four years in Iraq. It might unfortunately be coming when it is too little, too late. We'll see soon enough based on the reactions of local Sunnis and Shiites. Keep tuned.

The Young Turks