For people eager for actual bad news in Iraq, that is. At least that's what Amir Tehari says:

The Iraqi civil defence corps has gone on the offensive, hunting down terrorists, often with some success. At the same time attacks on the Iraqi police force have dropped 50% in the past month.

There is also good news on the economic front. In the last quarter the dinar, Iraq's currency, has increased by almost 15% against the dollar and the two most traded local currencies, the Kuwaiti dinar and the Iranian rial.

Thanks to rising oil prices, Iraq is earning a record Pounds 41m to Pounds 44m a day. This has led to greater economic activity, including private reconstruction schemes. That money goes into a fund controlled by the United Nations but Iraqi leaders want control transferred to the new interim government, when sovereignty is transferred at the end of this month.

Despite the continuing terrorist violence Iraq has attracted more than 7m foreign visitors, mostly Shi'ites making the pilgrimage to Najaf and Karbala where (despite sporadic fighting) a building boom is under way. This year Iraq has had a bumper harvest with record crops, notably in wheat. It could become agriculturally self-sufficient for the first time in 30 years...

..."We are coming out of the cold," says al-Ayyari. "The world should help us put our house in order." But this is precisely what many in the West, and the Arab world, won't do.

Having opposed the toppling of Saddam, they do not wish to see Iraq build a better future. Arab despots and their satellite television channels fear a democratic Iraq that could give oppressed people of the region dangerous ideas. The anti-American coalition in the West shudders at the thought that someone like Bush might put Iraq on the path of democratisation...

...Iraq is not about to disintegrate. Nor is it on the verge of civil war. Nor is it about to repeat Iran's mistake by establishing a repressive theocracy. Despite becoming the focus of anti-American energies in the past year, its people still hold the West in high regard. Iraq has difficult months ahead, nobody would dispute that. But it has a chance to create a new society. Its well-wishers should keep the faith and prove the doomsters wrong.