Iraq spins and spins

Roy Edros finds further proof that, if you hold your head just so, things are looking up in Iraq.

It's getting to the point where the Iraq mess -- or miracle, depending on your point of view -- is such a totem for politically-minded commentators that the actual state of its various districts seems absolutely irrelevant, even to the commentators themselves. Much of the country was blown to shit for specious reasons -- but one day it may be an economic powerhouse! Thus, in our age of endless spin, are the vagaries of life, the unpredictable shifts in the fortunes of the great and small, grist for anyone's mill, the product to be shaped into any sort of symbol one likes. Such products may be admired and even bought, but we should not forget that they are for decorative purposes only.

Iraq is becoming just so much bric a brac for the U.S.