Two things worth noting: the national oil law, critical to any stable future, has indeed been passed, with the Kurds key winners; the U.S. is now talking to Iran and Syria about Iraq's future. If you're an optimist, and we all want to be, that makes the chances of a soft partition in the future more likely. Civil war on a large scale is still more likely, but we shouldn't miss the slivers of hope as they pass us by.