"The experience of war changes people. For some it is a negative change but most manage to absorb the experience and use it to make themselves stronger."

Overall, the report said that "these findings may be expected to conclude that national reconciliation is neither anticipated nor possible. In reality, this survey provides very strong evidence that the opposite is true." A sense of "optimistic possibility permeated all focus groups . . . and far more commonalities than differences are found among these seemingly diverse groups of Iraqis."

More Totten from Fallujah:

I hear criticism of Iraqis of some kind almost every day when I'm in Iraq. There is a lot to criticize. Iraq is a broken country. Its infrastructure and economy are shot, its political culture dysfunctional. In my experience, though, contempt for Iraqi culture specifically, and Arabs and Islam more generally, is far more prevalent in the American civilian population, even in liberal coastal cities, than it is among American soldiers and Marines who interact with Iraqis every day, forge sometimes intense personal bonds with Iraqis, eat Iraqi food, and speak at least a little Arabic. Stereotypes about racist and psychotic Marines, as well as fanatical and psychotic Iraqis, can't survive a lengthy trip to Fallujah, at least not to the Fallujah of late 2007.

And:

"Who were these guys in 2004, exactly?" I said. Most of the Sunni Triangle has been largely pacified lately, but it was a genuine rogues gallery not long ago, bristling with terrorists and guerrilla armies that flew many flags. "Were they Al Qaeda, the 1920s Revolution Brigade, Baathists?" I said.

"I think a lot of them, honestly, were looking for work," he said. "[Lieutenant] Colonel [Patrick] Malay - he was our battalion commander - he used to talk about the Friendlies, the Fence-sitters, and the Fuckos. The fence-sitters would sometimes play off us. I think we had a lot of those, too. It's hard when you first get here if you're not used to being around Middle Eastern people and you're not used to the culture. They all stare at you, you know? Just because they're not used to you. There's was some confusion in general, people not used to each other's cultures. But like I said, I think it was a mixture. There were serious guys, then some less serious guys and people who were pressured into it. We could usually tell the difference when we fought them. Some were really there to fight. Others, halfway through, would sometimes think about it and then take off. They'd run or just give up."

Read the whole thing.