[Wright is right!]

"The hard part now is to organize some solid Iraqi power so as to not wake up in a few months and discover Al-Sadr or any other local tinpot dictator has established himself as a new Saddam. "

Actually, the hard part is showing the peoples of the Muddle East exactly what representative government means. They, by and large, have no real clue. They are a people who have more or less willingly been subjugated to a variety of dictatorial thugs of one stripe or another for thousands of years - to the point where many of them view democracy as "the right to vote for whom we've been told to vote." In a theocracy such as the repressed Shiites first proposed under Al Sistani, Sistani would issue an edict telling his followers for whom to vote - and then they would be "free" to do just that - vote for whom they'd been told to vote. Only with the fledgling local elections that have been taking place unreported by the Media, can these people begin to understand what a representative government is all about.

That's because the two major forms of government in the ME are primarily either tyranny or lawless anarchy. The Arab doesn't easily fall into the middle ground.

Michael

[Atlantic Friend]

Boy, are you right. Not even in Lebanon, with its large Christian population, has a Middle-East government been honest and/or efficient. Well, let's face it, most failed in both respects.

As an affiliate to the French Defense Institute, I recently attended a lecture by French Congressman Pierre Lellouche, a real friend of the US by the way, about the Arab governments. I could sum it up in two words : Arab government are abject failures, be it politically, economically, or morally.

[keysguy]

Iraqi citizens will respond to power, whomever has it will get their attention.