1 You know, I can't see it as really good news, and even if it were, there is such a huge swath of bad news in Iraq that you have to work to be willfully ignorant to imagine that things are going well. They ratifyied a constitution that establishes Iraq as an Islamic Republic, where all laws must comply with the rule of Islam. The fact that Iran fully approves of their constituion should at least raise an eyebrow, shouldn't it? Is making Iraq a mirror of Iran the best we could do? If so, it certainly wasn't worth the American lives lost. The Sunni politician had helped draft the new Iraqi constitution was just assassinated. The vast majority of Sunnis opposed it, exercised their democratic right to vote as a unified voice, and were still marginalized. There was clearly a large amount of vote fraud to ensure that the constitution would pass, as the numbers didn't add up. Talabani, the Iraqi president said "... at the end of the day my ability to confront the US military is limited and I cannot impose on them my will." Iraq is under the American military occupation, its government is helpless before American decisions about the fate of Iraq. No country is a "democracy" where a foreign military calls the shots, overruling the civilian president. You might feel better to read a rah-rah story and pretend that things are swell, but you feel better at the expense of ignoring the truth.