THE MARSH ARABS are making a comeback in Iraq:

A dozen years after Saddam Hussein ordered the vast marshes of southeastern Iraq drained, transforming idyllic wetlands into a barren moonscape to eliminate a hiding place for Shiite Muslim political opponents, Iraqi engineers have turned on the spigot again.

The flow is not what it once was — new dams have weakened the mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers that feed the marshes — but the impact has been profound. As the blanket of water gradually expands, it is quickly nourishing plants, animals and a way of life for Marsh Arabs that Hussein had tried so assiduously to extinguish. . . .

“Everyone is so happy,” Kerkush said as he watched his son stand in a mashoof and steer it like a gondolier with a long wooden pole. “We are starting to live like we used to, not the way Saddam wanted us to live.”

Well, that’s the point.