This, however, is kind of an unfortunate way of putting things:

Perkins added that on Feb. 20, no Iraqi civilians were killed or even targeted in attacks.

“This is a very significant event, and we are seeing more and more days like that throughout Iraq,” he said.

If you were an Iraq, would you really want to hear an American general highlighting one day in six years of war that no civilians were targeted for murder? The Iraq war is a confusing and frustrating thing, and Perkins undoubtedly meant nothing by the statement, but that’s rather tin-earned.

Interestingly, Perkins added that the results of the provincial elections are being accepted by the losers, but NPR’s Corey Flintoff reports that members of the Iraqi Islamic Party — the recently-deposed party in Anbar Province — are being targeted for assassination, suggesting that the winners are having a hard time settling for mere political victory.

“We will form the government of Anbar anyway,” vowed Ahmed Abu Risha, his voice dipping to a quiet growl. The tribesmen seated in his visiting room, where photos of U.S. generals and Sunni monarchs adorn the walls, nodded in approval. “An honest dictatorship is better than a democracy won through fraud,” Abu Risha said.

Curfews and stricter security measures have locked Anbar down as the vote count proceeds. The Iraqi Islamic Party, naturally, insists there was no vote fraud, and the national election commission is investigating. It’s foolish to try to adjudicate that dispute from Washington, so forgive the he-said-she-said aspect of this post. But, as Marc Lynch writes, we’re in a situation where the losing party in the elections will not accept the legitimacy of the outcome, and quite possibly will turn violent. The irony is that for all the expectation that this round of elections would redress the power imbalances of the 2005 national elections — where the Sunnis rejected the legitimacy of the process and boycotted — this is a comparable situation.

Remember as well that the Awakening has, since at least 2006, always wanted a seat at the governing table and distrusted both its Sunni rivals and the ruling Shiite-led government. Under Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military command in Iraq went to arduous lengths to convince the tribes that participation in the process — what Petraeus and outgoing Ambassador Ryan Crocker called “reconciliation” with the government — would get them what they want. This was the first test of that proposition. It may well have failed.

It’s very difficult to imagine the Awakening returning to insurgency. But it’s not difficult to imagine the Awakening fighting the Iraqi Islamic Party, or any Iraqi security forces that try to assist it. Could Anbar spark an inter-province conflict? Hey, incoming Ambassador Chris Hill: welcome to Iraq. Good thing the Obama administration alienated proven warrior-diplomat Tony Zinni!