A Sort of Democratic Republic

It has become apparent that the final Bush excuse for the Iraq War, spreading Democracy with a capital D, is not to be in Iraq. The people of Iraq may vote and paint their thumbs purple, but it sounds like it will be a totally Islamic kind of republic in which women will fare no better (perhaps even worse) than under Saddam. Currently the three main groups in Iraq cannot decide on how to finalize their constitution, generally because of religious factionalism.Worst case scenario: civil war. See also Peter Galbraith in The New York Review of Books.