WHICH MADE W PROUD AND DEMOCRATS ASHAMED:

Rebirth of a Nation: Something that looks an awful lot like democracy is beginning to take hold in Iraq. (Babak Dehghanpisheh, John Barry and Christopher Dickey, NEWSWEEK
Published Feb 26, 2010 , Newsweek)

And yet it has to be said and it should be understood—now, almost seven hellish years later—that something that looks mighty like democracy is emerging in Iraq. And while it may not be a beacon of inspiration to the region, it most certainly is a watershed event that could come to represent a whole new era in the history of the massively undemocratic Middle East.

The elections to be held in Iraq on March 7 feature 6,100 parliamentary candidates from all of the country's major sects and many different parties. They have wildly conflicting interests and ambitions. Yet in the past couple of years, these politicians have come to see themselves as part of the same club, where hardball political debate has supplanted civil war and legislation is hammered out, however slowly and painfully, through compromises—not dictatorial decrees or, for that matter, the executive fiats of U.S. occupiers. Although protected, encouraged, and sometimes tutored by Washington, Iraq's political class is now shaping its own system—what Gen. David Petraeus calls "Iraqracy." With luck, the politics will bolster the institutions through which true democracy thrives.

One continuing problem is that it is still a country rather than a nation and even developed societies have trouble holding them together.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 2, 2010 8:40 PM