"The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology."


Saturday, April 22, 2006

Iraq Takes Another Step

If it had not been already, the notion or claim that Iraq has descended into civil war was dispelled once again today by the appointment of a new prime minister, agreed to by both Sunni and Kurdish parties. The new prime minister will have thirty days to form a new government. A new speaker for the parliament and two deputies were also selected, along with the reelection of Kurdish President Jalal Talibani.

Though finding consensus on who will fill posts in the most significant ministries is likely to cause as much tension as finding a prime minister was, the fact that Iraq is making slow but steady progress is irrefutable. The next step in forming the nation’s first constitutionally formed government has been made, Iraqi security forces grow stronger and more experienced by the day, the economy is growing, and Iraqi civil society continues to develop. Sectarian strife and violence does exist, no one denies that, but exceeding that, at least at this point, is a broader desire within Iraq to keep the nation on the path towards secure democracy. There is no civil war, not now, because the Iraqi populace and it’s leaders have not allowed one.

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