Six to nine months after the surge in U.S. troop levels in Iraq, violence is down, or at least we’re told violence is down. How would we know, really? Pentagon press releases? The mainstream media?

Last week’s issue of the New Yorker has a piece on the surge by Jon Lee Anderson, in which he reports that Moqtada al-Sadr’s Madhi Army has been standing down since August.

Anderson writes that al-Sadr, worried about losing control of his fighters, ordered a six-month stand down, while he reconsolidates his power.

The Madhi cease-fire, if it indeed lasts six months, will end in March, about the time the presidential primaries will be settling on two major-party candidates.