Nadezhda - spasib' bol'shoi for your reasoned and temperate reply-- fwiw, your site is like a lungful of oxygen in the smogpit of nastiness that is the contemporary blogosphere. To your point: "our starting point needs to be -- what did the elections mean for the Iraqis, not whether the US can or should impose democracies in countries with uncongenial governments through overt or covert regime change..." I agree totally with your sentiments. I think it would be enormously helpful if the debate in the west regarding Iraq were framed within the context of Iraqi democracy and its enemies, broadly defined. Just as in South Africa the struggle was first and foremost between those who wanted racial war and those who wanted to build a tolerant democracy, so the struggle in Iraq now is between those who favor violence and those who favor the democratic process. I think it would help greatly if our media betters would stop using the word "insurgents" and describe these death-cult adherents as fascists. For their goal in creating chaos is to create chaos; the goal of killing is killing. "I think if you watched the work that goes on among nations within the international economic and financial institutions you wouldn't be writing off European influence quite so readily..." I do indeed appreciate these, but we reach an impasse with the Europeans on issues of war and peace. The security framework has simply not kept up with the economic and financial institutional framework. NATO is next to useless outside of Europe, where its influence is no longer necessary (beyond reassuring the Poles and the Balts). No amount of jaw-jaw will overcome the fundamental contradictions of our positions re Iran. If a military attack on Iran is a priori out of the question-- as per the EU3-- then the US-EU3 goodcop-badcop routine will not work. The Iranians know this and are turning the negotiations into a farce. And the UNSC is mechanism designed to produce deadlock. Not to apportion blame here-- certainly there's plenty of blame to go around for the collapse of collective security-- but we need another path forward. I like Fukuyama's idea of an Asia-Pacific Big 5 forum modeled on the OSCE and comprising US-China-Japan-Russia-SKorea. Perhaps India and Australia could be included in this. But the big obstacle to any kind of collective security arrangement is that the the great-powers-to-come are still not willing to step up and assume responsibility for helping resolve crises that don't touch their borders. China and Russia's complete absence in tsunami relief efforts speaks volumes. If we are to have real collective security mechanisms in this century, then these nations, and Japan and probably India as well, will have to step up and start contributing to solutions with troops and aid rather than merely gaming each situation for contracts, energy resources and short-term influence. Anyway, sorry to spin off on this tangent. Love your site. Keep up the good work.