Karl Zinmeister writes in yesterday's Christian Science Monitor, "US soldiers and administrators are turning a tide of history and culture in the Middle East. If Americans show some patience, they'll gaze upon many heartening transformations in Iraq a few months and years from now."
Zinsmeister reports that the soldiers he hears from "believe they're making great progress in setting Iraq on the path of a more normal, decent nation." He offers the following as signs they're right:
• Stores are bustling, traffic is busy, and most services have now exceeded their prewar levels. A new currency went into circulation last week.
• Large cities, home to millions - like Basra, Mosul, and Kirkuk - and vast swaths of countryside in the north and south, are stable, basically peaceful, beginning to bubble economically, and grateful to coalition forces who've set them on a new path.
• More than 170 newspapers are being published in Iraq, and broadcast media proliferate.
• The Iraqi Governing Council has been well received by the country's many factions and ethno-religious groups. Sixty-one percent of Iraqis polled by Gallup in September view the council favorably. And by 50 to 14 percent they say it is doing a better, rather than worse, job than it was two months ago.
• For the first time, localities have their own town councils. A working court system has been set up. And a constitution is being hashed out.
• In addition to the 140,000 US troops providing security, there are about 25,000 soldiers from other countries, and 60,000 Iraqi police and guards on the job - with many thousands more in the training pipeline.
• Nearly all schools and universities are open; hundreds have been rehabbed into their best shape in years by soldiers.
• Iraq's interim economic leaders recently committed the country to a wide-open, investment-friendly market economy. The prosperity and global connectivity this should bring will be the ultimate guarantee of Iraq's modernity and moderation.
• Oil production has passed 1 million barrelsper day, and is heading toward 2 million.
• Iraqi public opinion is more moderate than suggested by the anecdotal temperature-takings in press reports. Four entirely different polls have been conducted in Iraq, and their remarkably congruent results show that the majority of Iraqis are optimistic about their future, and believe ousting Saddam Hussein was worth any hardships that have resulted.
The four-city survey in August by The American Enterprise, a magazine I edit, suggests that the three nightmare scenarios for Iraq - a Baathist revival, an -style theocracy, and a swing toward Al Qaeda - are very unlikely, given current Iraqi views. And contrary to media reports of boiling public resentment, all of these polls show that two-thirds of Iraqis want US troops to stay for at least another year.
• Meanwhile, the pouncing raids that US forces initiated two months ago have hurt the guerrillas. More than 1,000 fighters have been arrested and many others killed. The bounty paid by ex-Baathists toinduce attacks on American soldiers has had to be increased from $1,000 to $5,000 to find takers.
• Most critically, the US is now on offense, rather than defense, in the war on terror. With a shock being applied to the seedbeds of Middle Eastern violence, the US homeland has been blessedly quiet for two years.
Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the pointer.
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