Thursday, April 07, 2005

Iraq's Democratic Spring

Fire of Liberty

Tony Blankley has a great column in today's edition of The Washington Times. While most networks and news divisions in the various newspapers have been focusing on the death of JPII, Mr. Blankley has been keeping up with the monumental turn towards democracy in Iraq. As readers of this blog are aware, the Iraqi parliament has selected a broad array of leaders from the various Kurdish, Sunni and Shia that truly demonstrates how powerful the Fire of Liberty is in a nation which has been denied freedom for so long. See for yourself what an awe inspiring event that has conspired in Iraqi history:
This must be an invigorating moment to be a cultural anthropologist. Is it possible that the art of negotiation, evolved to the level of an art-form in the Middle Eastern bazaars over the centuries, is being adapted to substitute for their lack of parliamentary debate experience, much as the cat's predatory skills, formed before there was man, turned out to be perfectly adaptable to survival in the back alleys of human cities?

However they are managing it, the Iraqi politicians are moving deliberately and shrewdly toward the formation of a viable democratic government despite the jeering of the Washington pundits. For almost two years now, I have regularly appeared on television political talk shows with most of the anti-Bush brigade of Washington wise guys and gals. While many of them probably had never even heard of Sunnis, Shias and Kurds until the Iraq war, they all professed to be quite certain that these ancient divisions would surely lead Iraq into civil war after President Bush's blunder of overturning Saddam.

I hope that the opponents of Operation Iraqi Freedom will discover for themselves the miracle of democracy that is emerging in Iraq. Sometimes it takes a while for the ripple of reality to reach the doubting Thomas's in the World. No matter, democracy will march on irrespectively of what the critics might say.

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