From the AP:

Ukraine withdrew 150 servicemen from Iraq (news – web sites) on Saturday, beginning a gradual pullout, as Shiite and Kurdish politicians refined plans to form a coalition government that officials said includes an agreement not to turn the country into an Islamic state.

[…] In political developments, the country’s main Shiite and Kurdish coalitions were putting the finishing touches on an agreement they hope to sign on Monday forming a coalition government. Any U.S. exit strategy hinges on having a new government organize Iraq’s army and police to take over responsibility for security.

A senior member of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, Ahmad Chalabi, traveled late Friday to Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad, for talks with Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader who is slated to become Iraq’s next president.

The Kurds have agreed that conservative Islamic Dawa party leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari will be Iraq’s prime minister.

“There is discussion and there is an agreement on the basic principles. But there is not final agreement on all the details. This visit was on invitation by Talabani to Chalabi. The atmosphere was positive,” said alliance member Ali al-Faisal.

Kurds and alliance officials said both sides agreed that Iraq would not become an Islamic state, a desire also expressed by the country’s most powerful Shiite cleric — Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party, said the Kurds would oppose any attempt to turn Iraq into an Islamic state.

“I think the Shiites well understand that implementing an Islamic government … will bring a lot of problems,” Barzani told Dubai’s Al-Arabiya television. “We have an alliance with the Shiites. We were both oppressed, and we both struggled against the old regime, but if they insist on having a religious government we will oppose to them.”

An alliance member, Ali al-Dabagh, said there were no plans to turn Iraq into a religious state or a secular one.

“We neither want to establish a religious nor a secular state in Iraq, we want a state that respects the identity of the Iraqi people and the identities of others” al-Dabagh said.

YOUR ILL-ADVISED IRAQ ADVENTURE WILL TURN THAT COUNTRY INTO A RAGING ISLAMIST THEOCRACY THAT WILL DESTABILIZE THE REGION AND HELP AL QAEDA ACHIEVE ITS GOAL OF BRINGING ABOUT THE NEW CALIPHATE, MR. BUSH!  THE BLOOD OF MILLIONS WILL BE ON YOUR HANDS!  THE ARAB STREET SHALL RISE IN BLOODLUST!

Yes, the violence continues in Iraq, but there is no escaping the change in tone we’ve witnessed in the US media since the Iraqi elections took place.  Once the momentum tipped toward the tangible prospect of a free and democratic Iraq, reports of militant violence—though still prominent in the western media—have taken on a tone that suggests even the war’s critics have decided the insurgency, for all its continued attempts to bring down the new government, is itself moribund.

Here’s hoping.

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(h/t Rob)