Don't Mess with Mesopotamia

Finally, in the midst of negative punditry on why democracy won't fly in Iraq, cautious optimism from contrarian Senatorial types about why it'll take years, and a classified cold shower by the US State Department, here's an article in The Australian that offers a compelling argument for why and how democracy can flourish in postwar Iraq. Of course, the author, an Iraqi historian, had to make a Gilgameshian trek back to 3,500 B.C. to find a workable model for how Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds can play all nice and governmental-like. But what the heck, it's better than nothing.