If it's in the NY Times it must be...

...worth reading in this case:

Baghdad’s Weary Start to Exhale as Security Improves

Must be an awful lot of rotting socks out there today. Earlier good news here.

But Anne Applebaum sees bad news on a much broader stage.. I think she has a very good point, but her final sentence could be dead wrong. And if a Democrat is elected president (not that I'm advocating that) international opinion towards the US could turn quite rapidly:

...I have to say that this optimism is totally unwarranted. Not because things aren't improving in Iraq -- it seems they are, at least for the moment -- but because the collateral damage inflicted by the war on America's relationships with the rest of the world is a lot deeper and broader than most Americans have realized. It isn't just that the Iraq war invigorated the anti-Americanism that has always been latent pretty much everywhere. What's worse is the fact that -- however it all comes out in the end, however successful Iraqi democracy is a decade from now -- our conduct of the war has disillusioned our natural friends and supporters and thrown a lasting shadow over our military and political competence. However it all comes out, the price we've paid is too high...

Mark C.

Update: Even the BBC is getting on board. The horror! The horror!

Posted by markc at November 21, 2007 07:39 AM