Good news from the marshes of southern Iraq

It has been more than fifty years since the English explorer Wilfred Thesiger visited the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq. Since then the area was devastated by the depredations of Saddam Hussein who ordered the draining of the marshes in the 1980s to deny regime opponents and army deserters a sanctuary. Since 2003 areas of the marshes have been reflooded and there has been some recovery, as this New York Times Science section article reveals. While this unique region of the Gulf will never completely recover, there are prospects of a partial recovery. While the tragedy of the desiccated marshes was not one of Bush’s rationales for invading Iraq, it may turn out to be one area where the result is unmistakably praiseworthy.