The underappreciated success of Iraqi democracy

Just weeks after the tragic fall of Afghanistan, something important has happened in the other country in which the United States conducted a great nation-building experiment over the past two decades: Iraq held elections, which were mostly free and fair. Assuming this process leads to the formation of a new government, it will be the sixth peaceful transfer of power since 2004. Although turnout was at a record low, this election marks real progress. A senior Iraqi official described it to me as “a political earthquake.”

Eighteen years after the United States’ invasion, which ushered in an era of chaos, civil war and the rise of the Islamic State, Iraq’s democratic system has endured. Elections have become routine. Political parties compete and horse-trade. There is even a degree of pluralistic media and an increasingly assertive judiciary (not quite free and independent by Western standards, but one that is showing some progress). The independent electoral commission, for example, which is composed of judges, has been remarkably impartial and effective.

To read the full article, please click here.