Success in Iraq

Queen’s professor of political studies, Bruce Gilley, writes a thoughtful piece on Iraq. His take is refreshingly far from what one expects from the typical Canadian academic. Though he does express a seemingly obligatory "I’m no fan of Bush" and "... administration’s mendacity on WMD", the rest optimistically supports the war’s aims and progress:

...my own view is more positive: Iraqi democracy is on the right track. As it continues to develop in the decades to come, George W. Bush's war will be vindicated.

The only semi-democratic states in the Arab world are Jordan and Kuwait. Iraq is rapidly surpassing them in terms of its electoral, civil and media freedoms.

We usually give our politicians at least a four-to five-year term in order to engineer even minor changes in public policy. Why would we expect Iraq to build a functioning democracy in terrible conditions in a shorter time? Talk about double standards.

...developments described above are vindicating, not undermining, the original case for war.