From CNN:

The U.S. military formally handed authority over Baghdad’s “Green Zone” to Iraqis on Thursday as new pacts governing the mission of international troops replaced a U.N. mandate.

Iraqi troops took over checkpoints around the heavily protected district, formally known as the International Zone, which houses Iraqi government offices and the U.S. Embassy.

While victory in Iraq has been evident for some time now, I think its safe to say that this will be the moment that history remembers as the successful end of the war. An end which will be remembered as a momentous victory for both the United States and the people of Iraq.

These quotes from both Iraqi and American officials crystalize the meaning of this achievement:

“This day is a great day in the history of the Iraqi people,” Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta said.

Maj. Gen. David Perkins, a U.S. military spokesman, noted the significance of turning over the former Republican Palace.

“The palace was handed back to the Iraqi people, significant as symbol of the head of the government and a sign for increased sovereignty,” he said at a news conference with Atta.

Perkins went on to describe exactly what this hand over means on the ground:

“We will continue to be there to provide some technical capacity, to provide some mentoring, but you will see less and less American forces and more and more Iraqi forces — and they will have the majority of the responsibility for making those key decisions which determine the security of the capital.”

Of course none of this would have ever been possible without the decision of President Bush to implement the surge and the brilliance of General David Petraeus in carrying it out.

Here’s to our soldiers, President Bush, the Iraqi people, and person of the year General David Petraeus.

In a first ever public display, Baghdad residents are celebrating Christmas:

From a distance, it looks like an apparition: a huge multi-colored hot-air balloon floating in the Baghdad sky, bearing a large poster of Jesus Christ. Below it, an Iraqi flag.

Welcome to the first-ever public Christmas celebration in Baghdad, held Saturday and sponsored by the Iraqi Interior Ministry. Once thought to be infiltrated by death squads, the Ministry now is trying to root out sectarian violence

The story of an Iraqi priest crystallizes the importance of this celebration:

Father Saad Sirop Hanna, a Chaldean Christian priest, is here too. He was kidnapped by militants in 2006 and held for 28 days. He knows firsthand how difficult the lot of Christians in Iraq is but, he tells me, “We are just attesting that things are changing in Baghdad, slowly, but we hope that this change actually is real. We will wait for the future to tell us the truth about this.”

He just returned from Rome. “I came back to Iraq because I believe that we can live here,” he says. “I have so many [Muslim] friends and we are so happy they started to think about things from another point of view and we want to help them.”

During this time of celebration and joy I am heartened to see that our brothers and sisters in Christ living in Iraq can join in along with their neighbors. Let’s keep praying for peace and prosperity to continue to spread in Iraq and that celebrations like this will increasingly become the norm there.

Yes, that’s right, at the same time Newsweek reporters are describing his acts as “a small measure of justice“, Muntadhar al-Zeidi called expressed his “regret and sorrow” for “the big and ugly act” he perpetrated. But, of course, don’t expect to see any of the MSM to take back their absurd assertions or, for that matter, even note the thrower’s apology.

The apology letter came with a request for a pardon from al-Maliki which appealed to some previous meetings between the two. However, al-Maliki’s spokesperson told Fox News that he rarely makes decisions based on emotion and has not decided on the pardon yet.

But even as the shoe thrower expresses his regret, expect to see his act of idiocy cemented by the media as evidence of the attitudes of everyone in the entire world. And, if the Iraqi journalist is punished by the Iraqi justice system look for the media to play up the outrage around the world and imply that the democratically elected government of Iraq is really a puppet regime controlled by Bush.

UPDATE: Allah at Hot Air has linked to this post. He has an interesting take on the political consequences for al-Maliki in the upcoming Iraqi elections. Though, it seems if Iraqis don’t already see Maliki as a Bush puppet and they view him as working for Iraq then whatever he chooses to do with this guy shouldn’t hurt him too much, especially considering the religious and ethnic dynamics Allah outlined.