Strategy, patience in Iraq

"WASHINGTON - As next Monday's deadline nears for drafting the constitution for the new government of Iraq, more than the future of that war-torn country is at stake. In a real sense, this is the first crucial test for the ambitious project of bringing democracy to the Middle East and Persian Gulf that President Bush has made a centerpiece of his second-term foreign policy.

Certainly the new monarch in Saudi Arabia and the leaders of Egypt and the nations of the Arab world across North Africa and into the Gulf are all watching closely how this experiment works. And so are the people and organizations within those countries who hope the United States is serious about pressing the cause of political reform in that part of the world."
The Cincinnati Post