GLIMMERS OF DEMOCRACY

Good news from Iraq. Next week will be the most critical election of them all: one which actually leads to the first, real constitutional, democratically elected government in decades. We still have so much to do; and our guide should be the millions of ordinary Iraqis who do not kill, who are not mass-murderers or religious fanatics, but who want to lead a normal life. After all this, we owe it to them to stand by them. However long it takes. For all the blunders of this blighted administration, it is absurd to expect perfection a mere three years after being liberated from totalitarian dictatorship. Thirty years is a more reasonable time-line. My hope is that U.S. troops, albeit in a minuscule presence compared to today, will still be there in thirty years’ time. Just as they are today in Japan, Germany and South Korea.