Quote of the Day: Mark Steyn on Iraq’s Election and the Mainstream Press
From his Sunday column in the Chicago Sun-Times:
Unlike press predictions of ”civil war” (now 2-1/2 years behind schedule), the American timetable has been stuck to, usually because at the 11th hour the fractious Iraqis manage to rouse themselves and get it together. Sixteen out of Iraq’s 18 provinces — including Sunni-majority ones — voted for the most liberal, democratic, federal and pluralist constitution in the Middle East. A disaster for the media, but worth a gloat from everyone else.
Whatever the Bush administration got wrong, it got one big thing right: that, if you persevered, Iraq had the potential to function as a free society in a part of the world where no such thing has ever existed. That was a long shot, and much sneered at. But Washington judged correctly: Given the radicalization of the Arab world, and the Arabification of the Islamic world, and the Islamification of much of the rest of the world, in the end you have to fix the problem at the source.
