I couldn't agree more. 'Who the Devil Really Was'

We have gotten used to bad news from Iraq—and there will be more. But there is good news as well. Elections are likely to go ahead as scheduled. In November, as the attack on Fallujah began, I argued that it would be a turning point, one way or another. It now appears that Fallujah altered the dynamic for the better. It's not simply that it was a military victory—everyone expected that. Far more important, the victory did not seem to generate a high political cost (something I was worried about). The uproar that was expected across Iraq in response to the operation simply did not happen. The Shia and Kurds did not complain, and even the "Sunni street" was much quieter than anticipated....

The current issue of Foreign Affairs has an exchange between two scholars, Tony Smith and Larry Diamond. Smith accuses Diamond, a longtime supporter of human rights, of making a "pact with the devil" by working (briefly) for the United States in postwar Iraq. Diamond, who had opposed the war, responds: "I do not regard the post-war endeavor as a pact with the devil. Let Smith and other critics visit Iraq and talk to Iraqis who are organizing for democracy, development, and human rights. Let them talk to the families that lived under constant, humiliating, Baathist rule. Let them see some of the roughly 300 mass graves of opponents of the regime who were brutally slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands. Then they will find out who the devil really was." I can't say it better.

Watch for the left to complain that "only" 40 or 50 or 60 percent of Iraqis vote in January and therefore the election is invalid - even though barely half of our own country bothers to vote.