Great piece on the Iraqi elections in the Observer today from Michael Ignatieff:
Liberals can’t bring themselves to support freedom in Iraq lest they seem to collude with neo-conservative bombast. Anti-war ideologues can’t support the Iraqis because that would require admitting that positive outcomes can result from bad policies. And then there are the ideological fools in the Arab world, and even a few in the West, who think the ‘insurgents’ are fighting a just war against US imperialism. This makes you wonder when the left forgot the proper name for people who bomb polling stations, kill election workers and assassinate candidates – fascists.
……Let us have the decency to support people who are fighting for a free election, and let us have the honesty not to blame them for our own incompetence if they fail. There is still no reason to assume they will.