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February 1, 2005
I see that Mark Steyne is being downloaded in The Australian these days. Towards the end his op-ed piece on why there is no civil war in Iraq he writes:
What happened on Sunday was a victory for the Iraqi people and a vindication for a relatively small group of Western politicians -- most notably the much-maligned US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, whose faith in those Iraqi people turned out to be so much shrewder than the sneers of his detractors.
Really?
Note that Steyn's grand freedom on the march narrative fails to mention the role played by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in. Factor Sistani into the birth of democracy in Iraq narrative and another story can be told. It was Grand Ayatollah Sistani who stood tough and fought for these elections.
It was Sustani's determination that made them happen when, as Juan Cole reminds us, Bush and Bremer Bush, Iraq desired a soft dictatorship under Chalabi; or a stage-managed election with an electorate consisting of a handful of pro-American notables.
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