Neocon optimism on Iraq by Steven Clemons

In their upbeat Weekly Standard assessment of the Dec. 15 Iraq parliamentary elections, they ridicule 'sour experts' whom they assert are going far out of their way to explain why 'the peaceful election of a national assembly for a fully self-governing Arab democracy was not a turning point.' But the election, according to Kristol and Kaplan, was no less than an 'eruption of democracy in the heart of the Arab world.'

Meanwhile, another neoconservative fellow traveler, Lawrence Kaplan, writes in The New Republic that while Americans have an understandable affliction of 'milestone fatigue' after all previous celebrated 'turning points' -- ranging from the capture of Saddam Hussein to last October`s constitutional referendum -- failed to trigger a stabilizing cycle in Iraq, Dec. 15 'really was a milestone.' In an assessment echoing Francis Fukuyama`s yesteryear notion on the 'end of history,' Kaplan confidently writes that 'however torturous the path to Iraqi democracy may have been ... for America at least, the path ended' on the day of Iraq`s elections.