It’s not often that good news–worthy of handshakes and smiles all around–is associated with Iraq. But that was, indeed, the case the other day at the United Nations. That’s when the Security Council, the U.N.’s most powerful body, lifted 20-year-old (Kuwait-invasion era) sanctions that had barred Iraq from acquiring weapons of mass destruction and pursuing a civilian nuclear program. It means progress confirmed. A relic of the Hussein era officially and finally jettisoned.
The reality is that Iraq, which took nine months to form a semblance of a government after elections, is now without those sanctions. It means that Iraq, whose government is tenuously comprised of jury-rigged alliances, is now without those sanctions. And it means that Iraq, a country with virtually no democratic track record but a chronic history of sectarian warfare, is now without those sanctions.
Has progress ever felt so sobering?