Baghdad was the proper return address, as a                    notice was served on the purveyors of terror that a price                    would be paid by those who aid and abet it. It was Saddam                    Hussein's choice -- and fate -- that he would not duck and                    stay out of harm's way in the aftermath of 9/11. We have not                    fully repaired the ways of the radicals in the intervening                    years. But the spectacle of the dictator's defeat, and the                    sight of him being sent to the gallows, have worked wonders on                    the temper of the Arab street.
                   So we did not turn Baghdad into a democratic                    city on a hill, and we learned that the dismantling of Sunni                    tyranny would leave the Arab world's Shiite stepchildren with                    primacy in Iraq. A better country has nonetheless risen,                    midwifed by this American war. It is not a flawless democracy.                    But compare it to the prison it was under Saddam, the tyranny                    next door in Damascus and the norms of the region, and we can                    have a measure of pride in what America has brought forth in                    Baghdad.
 
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