IRAQPUNDIT on Brookings' Iraq Index (see yesterday's post for background):

Brookings is to be thanked for its attempt to present an in-depth picture of a complicated society undergoing dramatic transition, when the major Western press is content to present us with a portrait of a place beset by car-bombs, kidnappings, and retrograde clerics.

I'm not in any way shrugging off the security situation in Iraq; it's very serious, and has repeatedly been a threat to the safety and well-being of my own family. But there are a lot of things happening in Iraq, with numerous developments pointing in welcome and even heartening directions.

[...] To me, these are indications that Iraqis are using their freedom to improve their personal lives and, in the process, to build their country. One of the most infuriating aspects of the Western media's presentation of Iraq is that Iraqis themselves are reduced to being the bleeding, mourning victims of terror; they are bit players in a narrative that is about Bush wrecking the country. The material in the Brookings report not only credits Iraqis with initiative, it restores to them the dignity that the Western media's one-dimensional presentation denies them.

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