Evan and I promised ourselves when we started this blog not to fall victim to America's ADD "breaking" news cycle, which ignores most of the world until a crisis occurs.

Well, you wouldn't know it from reading the news, but last month the US military had zero combat deaths in Iraq. December 2009 was the first month since the US invasion in which not a single American soldier was killed.

This is in large part because the US military is no longer very visible to Iraqi society since it has pulled out of most major cities. Over the past few months, insurgents have instead launched devastating attacks on Iraqi governmental ministries.

There are parliamentary elections due for March 7th, and for the first time, people will be able to vote for individual candidates rather than just candidate lists. This could make individual MPs more accountable.

Huge unresolved problems remain in Mosul and Kirkuk. There is still no real national reconciliation. And although the recent security breaches have not yet hurt PM Nuri al-Maliki's popularity on the street, it will if these attacks continue. The US is supposed to pull out all combat troops by August of this year. How that will turn out is anybody's guess.

For an informative interview on the current political situation in Iraq, check the CFR's discussion with the Christian Science Monitor's former Baghdad correspondent here.