Iraqis send Jack Murtha and Howard Dean a message.

From WSJ.com Opinion Journal... today...

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Mission (Partly) Accomplished
Iraqis send Jack Murtha and Howard Dean a message.
Friday, December 16, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

President Bush has done better at explaining his Iraq policy of late, but the most eloquent rebuttal to American defeatists came from the millions of Iraqis who voted yesterday for a new parliament. They are now practicing the democracy that the U.S. promised when it deposed Saddam Hussein. This is a great achievement.

Voter turnout was reportedly high across nearly all regions of the country, including such former no-go zones as Fallujah and Tal Afar in the Sunni Triangle. Terrorists managed only scattered attacks, far fewer than in the first round of elections in January.

The rap on January's vote was that Iraq's Sunni Arabs didn't participate, but this time they did and in huge numbers. The rap on October's referendum was that most Sunnis opposed the new Iraq constitution, but this time they voted to have a say in writing any changes to that charter.

Jordan's King Abdullah and other neighboring Sunni leaders complain that Iraq's Sunnis are mistreated. But the truth is that yesterday's vote gave Iraq's Sunni Arabs a far larger voice in shaping their government than average Sunnis have in Jordan or Syria, Saudi Arabia or Egypt.

Read it all HERE (requires a brief registration to immediately view today's article)

I submitted a response (don't know if they'll use it) but I said:

If I had been voting yesterday, I would have inked another finger for the defeatists and naysayers who wondered what the purpose in Iraq is... So now they know.

We need to support the Iraqi people -- militarily, economically, politically -- until there is a consensus among the Coalition (including the new Iraq) that such support is no longer needed. To do less would be dishonorable.

Now perhaps the rest of the international community (including the Arab world) will join us in this noble endeavor.

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