Huge Breakthrough on Iraq

For several months now encouraging news has been coming out of Iraq. First there were the military successes in places like Fallujah and through Anbar province, then evidence that al Qaeda was being marginalized throughout the country and much of its leadership eliminated, then came the emergence 0f local leadership organizations and a much improved Iraqi military and police institutions. [here] None of this much impressed America's elite news institutions which continued to parrot the Democrat line that whatever successes were achieved in Iraq, they were not enough.

You know how the game goes -- just keep moving the goalposts. Military success meant nothing until civil order was restored; the restoration of civil order in much of Iraq meant nothing until effective central government was installed; central government could not be effective while religious and ethnic divisions remained, etc., etc. The main point was to deny Bush any semblance of victory.

More recently there have been reports of significant political progress in the Iraqi national government [here]. [Note that the biggest obstacle to reconciliation has been an electoral system imposed by the United Nations.] Until now these have been widely ignored, but today the NYT breaks the vow of silence on progress in Iraq with this report:

[A]fter months of bitter feuding, Iraq’s Parliament has finally approved a budget, outlined the scope of provincial powers, set an Oct. 1 date for provincial elections and voted a general amnesty for detainees.

All these steps are essential for national conciliation.

Read the whole thing here.

This is a huge breakthrough.

Of course this is the New York Times, and so every positive development is accompanied by a slew of qualifications and doubts, but the fact that this bastion of liberal correctness is willing to admit that there has been "some" political progress is itself a tremendous crack in the liberal wall of denial. Reality is beginning to seep through and there is finally some hope that the Democratic Party will begin to come to terms with the real world beyond our borders.