MEANWHILE …

I’ve been chiding myself for not writing more about Iraq and Iran these past couple of weeks. The news strikes me as decidedly mixed. In Iran, it’s got to be good news that sit-ins have forced a trivial retreat by the ruling Islamo-fascist elite. But reinstating 200 candidates out of 3600 disqualified reformers can hardly count as a victory for the democratic forces. In Iraq, I found the massive demonstrations by Shiites earlier this week to be somewhat good news. The demos were peaceful; they were pro-democracy; they’re a small sign that democracy is possible in that blighted country. At the same time, David Ignatius’ troubling report from Baghdad shows the faultlines ahead. The vicious cycle of security breakdown preventing economic revival fomenting more unrest has yet to be broken. The possibility of the much-predicted civil war is now higher than in the recent past. The fact that we now desperately need the U.N. to achieve a stable transition shows how tough this has turned out to be. No. I still support the effort. The chance for a stable non-dictatorship in the Middle East would be a huge and transformative event. I just hope the White House still understands this; and won’t take its eye off the ball. We need the U.N.’s help to persuade Sistani of the impracticality of a direct election by the end of June. Just as obviously, we shouldn’t attempt to delay the transfer of power to a provisional Iraqi government. It’s going to take skill and some luck to thread this needle. But we cannot afford to botch it.