Victor Davis Hanson
Six years ago, the conventional wisdom was that
Last month, though, the Allawi-led Iraqiya alliance won, by a narrow margin, more parliamentary seats than any other coalition in national elections -- and he may become the country's next prime minister.
The secular Allawi successfully campaigned on the message of curbing religious interference in government -- countering the often-argued charge that the U.S. has created a radical Islamic republic in
Indeed, as we look back at our years in
Yes, there is still terrorist violence in
Meanwhile,
Last June, the representative Iraqi government held its first oil auction -- featuring transparent negotiations in which no American oil company was awarded an oil concession.
Instead, Chinese, Russian, British, French and other national oil consortia were given the awards. These were legitimate contracts, too -- not the sweetheart deals
After the U.S. removed the monstrous Saddam, many argued that we were only empowering neighboring
Currently, the Iranian theocracy is far more unpopular among Iranians than the Iraqi democracy is among Iraqis. Ending
Given
To a then-Sen. Clinton, the surge's purported success required a "suspension of disbelief." But, as we now know, the surge saved
Finally, there was the assertion that anti-war protests were all genuinely based on opposition to the American presence in
And
Many on the left no longer oppose the Bush-Petraeus plan of slow, graduated withdrawal from
It's true that many original supporters of the three-week removal of
We see all of this mostly in hindsight. Dire assertions about
And, most importantly, a successful democracy finally did arise after the fall of Saddam.
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