How the Tattoo Industry's Decline in Baghdad Reveals That Life Is Better in Iraq Without the U.S. Around

Life in Iraq is getting better. Take one example: two or three years ago, tattoo artists in Baghdad were working overtime giving distinctive tattoos to men who feared they would be killed in the Sunni-Shia sectarian slaughter.

Aware that the faces of so many who died were being mutilated, potential victims wanted their families to be able to identify their bodies through a special mark known only to close relatives. One man had an olive tree tattooed on to his body because his father had planted one on the day he was born.

This grisly ritual is no longer taking place because Iraq is now a safer place than it was at the height of the sectarian bloodbath in 2005-7, when 3,000 bodies a month were being stacked up in the morgues. Tattooists report that their clients are today seeking to be marked with the image of a falcon, tigeror dragon for solely decorative reasons.

The point is that security in Iraq is improving, but from a very low base. Baghdad is safer than it used to be though this still leaves it as extremely dangerous, certainly worse than Kabul, with perhaps only Mogadishu in Somalia edging it into second place.

Iraq still suffers from terrible levels of violence and this has never really abated, despite propaganda lauding the achievements of the American military "surge" which supposedly brought peace to much of the country. The media, both foreign and domestic, were suddenly full of feel-good stories such as the beginning of the return of five million refugees to their homes, though in practice few have come back.

By over-selling the extent to which Iraq had returned to peace since 2007, the Iraqi and American governments have left themselves open to the perception that an upsurge in bombing over the past month means the country is returning to war. The Iraqi Interior Ministry says 450 civilians were killed in June, double the figure for the previous month, and a further 566 civilians died in July after US troops pulled out of Iraqi cities on 1 June.

On returning from Iraq, people used to ask me hopefully if "things are getting better there" post-surge. I would routinely explain that "better" Baghdad might be, but it was still pretty bad. A more common query these days concerns whether or not "security is disintegrating now that the Americans have left the cities". There have certainly been more devastating bomb explosions and more people are being killed or injured. But the Americans were never able to stop this at the height of their strength in Iraq.

Regardless of who handles security, it is impossible to stop trucks packed with explosives or individual suicide bombers blowing up in market places, shrines, mosques or bus stations where they will cause maximum civilian casualties.

The targets are almost invariably Iraq's Shia majority and the aim is to provoke the Shia into retaliation against the Sunni minority, who then might return to supporting al-Qa'ida in Iraq, or look for backing from a foreign state. So far the Iraqi Shia have not risen to the bait.

The spectacular recent bombings divert attention away from the fact that the two wars which convulsed Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by the US military in 2003 are largely over. The first was by the Sunni Arabs (20 per cent of the population) against the American occupation and was waged from 2003 to about half-way through 2007.

It was effectively ended by the outcome of a second conflict, this time an extraordinarily bloody civil war between Sunni and Shia (60 per cent of the population). It was the Shia victory in this war, fought primarily in Baghdad and central Iraq, which forced the Sunni insurgents to end their guerrilla struggle against the Americans.

Neither war looks likely to reignite or return to its former level of violence. The American forces are going. Their combat forces will be out of Iraq in a year's time. All troops will be gone by the end of 2011.