Derb, I too was struck by that “racism” line in the Fareed Zakaria column last week. It struck me as particularly unworthy of Zakaria, since he wrote a whole book about how liberal democracy is dependent on the development of institutions and attitudes that don’t spring up overnight, and that economic development and freedom–creating a middle class–are crucial to this. Now, if you think that Iraq–which pretty much lacks all these ingredients to liberal democracy– would inevitably have a lot of the problems we are seeing now, you are racist. I think this is Zakaria letting his eagerness to bash the administration, which has indeed made mistakes in Iraq, get in the way of his own thinking.