This isn't a game. This isn't about poking a stick at George Bush. This is our lives

Account from some returning Iraqi exile students from Britain, who were setting up debating societies and pro-democracy organizations in Iraqi universities over the summer. Via Andrew Sullivan. It lines up with what Salam Pax was saying in an interview on "Fresh Air" last night on NPR: the majority of common Iraqis supported and wanted the invasion. Salam said that the thing he would have told Bush if he could go back in time would be to be more patient, get more of the world behind him, so that the "bad people" couldn't claim that the invasion was just more American imperialism. Me, I think that we got about as much of the world behind us as was movable; the '91 coalition was dependant on a promised '91 outcome - the Ba'athists retained in power, no overthrow, and a betrayal of the Iraqi people. And '91 was a cresting of the democratic wave - we're in a trough right now, with the next wave to come.