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Source: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7%A7ion=0&article=75187&d=24&m=12&y=2005
Democracy Is Alive and Well in Iraq
(Arab News-Saudi Arabia) Amir Taheri - The U.S.-led coalition has achieved all its principal objectives in Iraq: The Baathist regime has been dismantled. Democracy seems to be flourishing after several local elections, a constitutional referendum, and two general elections. A one-party system has been replaced with a pluralist one with more than 200 political groups and parties. Baghdad, which once hosted the headquarters of 30 international terror organizations, is now one of the few capitals in the Middle East in which terrorists are no longer welcome. Iraq may have to live with some level of insurgency for years. What matters is that the terrorist insurgency has already been defeated in political terms. The U.S.-led coalition came to Iraq not to impose democracy by force but to use force to remove impediments to Iraq's democratization. That task has been achieved in record time.