« A Circus of Carnivals | Main | Well That Settles That »
December 15, 2005
Crickets
Here's something fascinating:
For the third time in a year, the Iraqis have gone to vote in elections that were by and large peaceful, and featured a high turnout. In fact, in the current elections, the turnout was the highest yet since the Sunnis appear to have decided that their best bet for having any sort of power in Iraq is to join the democratic process (at least for now). In less than 3 years, the Iraqis have built, with our help, first an interim government, then a constitution, and now a permanent government. In the time frame that saw us still militarily governing Germany and Japan, the Iraqis have been sovereign for more than a year. Meanwhile, the Iraqis have been (again with our help) building up their security forces, to the point that those forces are now primarily responsible for security throughout Iraq, with the exception of a few areas in the West and Northwest of the country where the terrorists and few remaining Ba'athist fighters are more often fighting each other than the US.
So with this amazing story, what are the reactions of those who said that it couldn't be done? There appear to be three categories:
- It'll still go all to hell on you. Trust me on that.
- Nothing has changed and we are still in substantially the same position we were in during the first Falluja battle and the Sadr uprising.
- Story in Iraq? There's no story in Iraq.
Every time I start thinking that I am utterly cynical about human behavior, especially political behavior, I realize that I'm not nearly cynical enough.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.caerdroia.org/MT/mt-tb.cgi/687