Mark Steyn has another report from the Middle East.

Sartorially, Jordanian politics seems to be the opposite of American: in the New Hampshire primary, smooth, bespoke, Beltway types who?ve been wearing suits and wingtips since they were in second grade suddenly clamber into the old plaid and blue jeans and work boots, and start passing themselves off as stump-toothed inbred mountain men who like nothing better than a jigger of moonshine and a bunk-up with their sister. Evidently, in rural Jordan the voters are savvy enough not to fall for such pathetically obvious pandering.

He points out, as have others, that there’s much more to democracy than voting, and there’s a lot of work to do in Iraq, and it can’t be hurried.

It?s easy to imagine an Iraq with three regional parliaments in Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, harder to foresee a single legislature filled by members of nationwide parties. But if it ever happens it will be the very last piece of the puzzle. Americans understand this: the original colonists learned self-government in their towns and their states and eventually applied it to an entire continent.

There’s also much to avoid:

By contrast, those European sophisticates sneering that Washington won?t stay the course are often the same crowd who?ve found it easier to elevate the friendliest local strongman than create a durable constitutional culture. Dominique de Villepin, the ubiquitous Frenchman, declared the other day that Paris was indispensable to postwar reconstruction because it had so much experience in Africa. I don?t know about you, but I think Iraq deserves better than to be the new Chad or Ivory Coast.

That’s the end of it, but Read The Whole Thing.