DEMOCRATS VS. IRAQIS:

In prime minister, presidential race gets a touchstone (Anne E. Kornblut, September 24, 2004, Boston Globe)

Apart from the heavy Iraqi accent, he sounded almost like a Republican official introducing President Bush at a campaign stop. But as interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi of Iraq toured the diplomatic circuit in Washington yesterday, praising Bush for ''standing firm" in the war on terror and admonishing Senator John F. Kerry as a ''doubter," he took on a far more significant role in the presidential campaign than any American partisan ever could.

''When political leaders sound the sirens of defeatism in the face of terrorism," Allawi said, standing next to Bush in the White House Rose Garden, ''it only encourages more violence."

With that remark, Allawi, the former CIA operative installed in June at the helm in Iraq, became the face of the Bush administration's aspirations for Iraq, and a symbol of freedom that Democrats may attack at their peril.

You'd think Democrats would have learned a lesson from their assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem--you don't improve things by destroying your allies.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 24, 2004 10:00 AM