A Pantomime Horse

It's unilateral unless Jacques is on board Whatever my virtues as a writer might be, being this funny is not one of them:

"International community", by the way, doesn't mean Tony Blair, John Howard, the Poles, Japan, India, Fiji, et al but Jacques Chirac and Kofi Annan, a pantomime horse in which both men are playing the rear end. But, in an advanced, sophisticated democracy, that's how we define the "international community": no matter how many foreigners are in your coalition, it's unilateral unless Jacques is on board.

I sure wish Steyn was still in The National Post. I might still pick it up now and again if he were. Who's in it now? I dunno. They're all as dull as dish soap. It's like they've bleached all the personality out of the darn thing so as to make Adam Radwanski feel he might actually have a personality. I'm happy to see the Iraqi elections went off without too much trouble and I very much want to see this built upon. First steps are always the most difficult and I'm glad to see Iraqis may have it behind them now. Steyn again:

To hold a civil war you need two sides. Iraq fails to meet that minimum requirement. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- not an Iraqi, incidentally -- has a few foreign jihadi, some enthusiastic head-hackers and a dwindling supply of suicide bombers, a job in which by definition it's hard to get people with experience. On election day, his guys bullied a kid with Down syndrome into taking the gig. You can't have a Sunni-Shia war because Zarqawi doesn't represent the Sunni. Meanwhile, in the face of his provocations, the Shia have been a model of restraint and discipline and political surefootedness. Beazley might learn a thing or two from them.

Granted, a footling suicide cult with no mass support will still blow up cars and burn buildings, and it's savvy enough to do so in parts of the country conveniently located so that Zarqawi's shills in the Western press corps don't have to stray far from their hotels to film it. Or as the internet satirist Scott Ott deftly summarized the coverage: "Iraqi Voting Disrupts News Reports of Bombings."

I know well what the left will say to all of this: that we who are happy about the election are Pollyannas too happy to accept anything. But 'Pollyanna' is a defensive term. It allows the person using it to deflect and discredit criticism, rather than address it. Overuse of it is guaranteed to cripple your world view by making it insular and inbred (hello feminism!). As for the difficulties of the vote, you know what? In life you make do with what you have. Pissing all over the Iraqi election because it doesn't meet our standards is not helpful. The election took place in Iraq, not Ontario or New York. Early elections in our own back yard would not meet our standards today either. Were they invalid for that? Of course not. Insisting on unattainable standards before we start is a good way to ensure that nothing ever gets done.