The Iraqi Elections

I'm not going to rehash things already said about the new elections in Iraq. It is amazing, democracy at work, and is one small step in the larger road to a free and peaceful Middle East. If you want punditry (and it's good, so read them) you can go to my links below:

American Future, a Foreign Service Officer blog.

One Free Korea takes some time out to talk about Iraq.

The Glittering Eye has a great picture at the start of this post.

Instapundit, as always, is on top of this with links here, here, here, and here.

The Seattle Times has a good roundup of what Iraqi bloggers are saying, but I encourage you to go to their sites, Iraq the Model, Messopotamian, Iraq Pundit, and A Citizen of Mosul to find out what it's like from those who live there.

Finally, to shed an interesting light on all this, read Colossus, by Niall Ferguson, who argues that America has collective ADD. Whereas we used a long time to rebuild Germany and Japan--and achieved great success--we hold our government to ever shorter time frames effecting less and less success each time. I personally haven't read the book yet, but I hope to get it for Christmas, and either way, it's an interesting way to look at the current situation in Iraq.

I for one, think this is a genuine sign of democracy taking root, America is fixing its mistakes (which it did make), and American presence (militarily) will be in Iraq for the next 50 years. Yes, 50 years. We will pull out large amounts of troops by the end of 2006 at the earliest (probably 2007) and will maintain a smaller presence (probably with bases like in Germany) for quite some time after.