Well, we can already count one victory: the Iraqis, mired in a Vietquagmire and facing constant (real) terrorism, can be trusted to vote on their constitution in 2005 — just a couple of years removed from living under one of the world’s brutal tyrants — which says a lot about Iraq’s present status and how the world views their status. Meanwhile, how’s that going in Europe?

Surely we can’t talk about failure in Iraq, when Iraqis are more trusted with their democracy than Europeans are with theirs, and have achieved more actual democratic progress in a far more hostile environment.

UPDATE: On the subject of victories in Iraq’s democratic revolution, why is it that certain commentators (see, e.g., here) seem to view a “No” vote on the present referendum as a failure? It seems fairly obvious that in putting forth the document for popular voting, those who established the process for democratizing Iraq explicitly want a consensual response before going ahead with other devolpements which, as Omar at Iraq the Model pointed out, rest on the acceptance of a successful constitution. If the Iraqi people send this back to their elected representatives, surely that’s a healthy and even good thing, a cause for more bargaining and the other messy realities of a free and democratic culture, and not some major catastrophe, or a “setback for the Americans, particularly the Bush administration” (sorry, just reading from my AP-headlines-of-the-future machine).

Since the majority of “No” voters will presumably be Sunni, one would think that the Sunnis stand to gain the most from a rejection of the constitution — certainly they believe so. However, I agree with this older but very timely post by Eric Raymond, where he argues essentially that the Kurds seceding would be a good litmus test for how Iraq is progressing — and, by extension, I think that the Kurds (if anyone) have the most to gain from pretty much any departure from the current plan, and the Sunnis would be left out in the cold should the Shiites and Kurds take their cards off the table. As it is, the terrorists have limited options and are reduced to blowing up innocent school kids, but with well-defended Shiite and Kurdish borders and even more limited option, no doubt there would be a good chance of an implosion of Sunni Iraq — not good for Sunnis.

Finally, what motivates those Western individuals who are palpably hoping for a “No” vote? I assume they’re making the same mistake as the Sunni and foreign terrorists, believing that this would further the division of Iraq and demonstrate some mistake or other of the Bush administration. On this view, a refusal of the constitution would be a seemingly desirable thing to them, although in the end it would lead to a great deal of bloodshed. If I’m correct, that doesn’t say a lot for the current “anti-war” movement, aligning itself with a bunch of nutjob murderers, and regardless of intent promoting a view that’s hopeful for an extermely violent outcome.