Iraq Proves The Doubters Wrong Again And Again

By Andrew Bolt

Through gritted teeth, AFP acknowledges the miracle of Iraqi democracy:

Iraqis defied waves of bomb, mortar and rocket attacks that killed 38 people to turn out in huge numbers to vote in elections seen as a test of the war-shattered state’s fragile democracy.

Gritted teeth? So what’s to object to there?

First, Iraq’s economy was not shattered by the short war that liberated the country from Saddam Hussein. It’s Saddam’s misrule that did most to ruin it, and since the 2003 war the economy has grown:

Second, what is the evidence that Iraq’s democracy – a rarity in the Arab Middle East – is “fragile”? Since the 2001 war, the country has held two general elections, a presidential election, a governate election and a referendum, with many millions of voters turning out each time, despite threats to their lives.

I think it’s time to frankly acknowledge that a country that was once a sinkhole of tyranny, state-sanctioned theft and devastating misrule is now that rarest and most valuable of things in the Middle East – a democracy with a fast-thriving economy.

And which leaders did most to achieve this transformation?