A number of Bush critics have watched the wave of popular demand for democratization sweep across the Middle East since the staging of the Iraqi elections on January 30th and have started to question their previous assumptions. The New York Times did this, with reservations, in its unsigned editorial last Tuesday. Today, the Christian Science Monitor published an opinion piece wondering if Bush has been right all along. Try to guess who wrote this:

The movements for democratic change in Egypt and Lebanon have happened since the successful Iraqi election on Jan. 30. And one can speculate on whether Iraq has served as a beacon for democratic change in the Middle East.

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush said that "a liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region."

He may have had it right.

That conclusion came from the pen of Daniel Schorr, senior news analyst at National Public Radio. This is the man who wrote that the war "lacked a rationale" in September 2003, implied in November 2003 that Bush wanted to abandon Iraq before our 2004 presidential election, and argued in December 2003 that Libya's abrupt reversal on WMD had nothing to do with Bush's invasion of Iraq and capture of Saddam Hussein.

Interestingly, Schorr's Iraq commentary appears to have ended at NPR just over a year ago. In the meantime, it looks like he has been doing some research and opening his mind a bit more.

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