THE good news for the United States is that Fallujah, the city
at the heart of Iraq's insurgency has, for the time being,
fallen strikingly quiet. American forces have lifted their
three-week siege and withdrawn beyond the town's perimeter. Many
of the 100,000 residents who had fled have come home. Americans
and Iraqis who were fighting each other have agreed to create a
“Fallujah brigade”. Insurgents who hours earlier were shooting
at Americans happily accepted American offers of cash, radios
and uniforms.  Many Americans—and Iraqis—in Iraq worry that
these short-term gains have come at the cost of rehabilitating
the old security apparatus that the Americans have travelled so
far to crush. But already America's generals are touting
Fallujah as a model for pacifying other rebellious towns. “They
feel like it's a solution that could work elsewhere,” says the
marines' commander, General Jim Conway. “There are obvious
advantages to it.” An Iraqi general said that the deal over
Fallujah could serve as a precedent