IRAQ: Maliki's Baghdad restaurant

On a recent night, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki went to celebrate Baghdad's security gains. He went out to a restaurant in Baghdad's Karrada district, where he was greeted by Baghdadis. The visit by Maliki and his entourage would have been unthinkable a year ago when bombings happened every day. But now with a relative calm, Maliki and his supporters were given a hero's welcome in the primarily affluent Shiite district, where restaurants stay open into the evening. The tour seemed akin to a Western-style meet-and-greet by politicians in the United States.
Babylon & Beyond