Charlie Rose kept me up late last night against my will, but his interview of the NYT's John Burns and Dexter Filkins about Iraq was fascinating, largely because it shed new light, for me at least, on how much things have actually improved on the ground there.

Whether the reduction in violence changes the strategic equation remains to be seen -- and Burns and Filkins agree that the odds remain long. But coming from two men who were in Iraq during the worst of times, their astonishment at the turnaround there within a relatively short time is notable:

I certainly knew violence was down. But since the pronouncements of improvement in Iraq have come from such an unreliable messenger, the Bush Administration, they have been easy to discount. Perhaps too easy.