Great piece at MESH about the need for realistic expectations for Iraqi democracy. For your Volgi’s taste, if by the time we leave (or draw down to an token presence at their request) Iraq has a relatively decent government, that’s a huge win for us, and more importantly for the Arab world. Even if its democracy evolves into something akin to Kenya’s—a power-sharing mechanism between groups of voters voting group identity over individual interests—that’s a massive, massive step towards popular sovereignty. It would be, by far, the most democratic system ever to have existed in an Arab country. And if it proved viable over a number of years, it would do more than anything else to persuade Arabs that their options aren’t limited to autocrats, Islamists, and terrorist groups. Right now a lot of the Arab world looks at those ugly options and tries to pick the least-bad. To give them a fourth option—that of a fairly un-oppressive government that responds in some fashion to the will of the people? Revolutionary. And in the good, non-French, non-Russian way.

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.