Good News from Iraq

Things look hopeful there. [Link]

Historians may well mark this as the moment Iraq entered a new phase of existence, beginning to enter the Western world the way South Korea and Japan did after U.S. occupations:

BAGHDAD - The secular challenger who stunned Iraq with his razor-thin parliamentary election win turned his attention to negotiations over a future government Saturday even as supporters of the prime minister vowed to fight the results.
Ayad Allawi's two-seat win was hailed as a startling comeback for a politician who just four years ago was shunned as a U.S.-backed puppet, but the closeness of the race meant his road to regaining the premiership was anything but guaranteed.
...
Regardless of the final outcome, the results of the parliamentary vote were a turning point and served as a rejection of the domination of Shiite religious parties who are closely aligned with Iran and rose to power after the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime in 2003.

So much for the theocratic Iranian satellite defeatists like the oft-quoted Mideast "expert" Juan Cole promised us (longtime Iraq observers will remember Cole's earlier 2004 prediction that we would appoint a strongman instead of holding elections; somehow, despite his inability to predict even the most obvious elements of the foreign policy of his own country the MSM continues to cite his "expertise" on Iraqi matters).