LATimes' Vision Further Out Of Focus

There's encouraging news of demonstrations throughout the Mideast, as citizens say they'd rather have a "flawed" election Iraqi style than a flawed repressive autocracy (just read Captain's Quarters -- he's got lots of items on the subject).

Of course this is no time for Pollyannas, but it is a time for hope -- unless, of course, you're the international news editor at the LATimes. Then you work hard to create a front page story that's as gloomy as possible:

U.S.' Prewar Visions Get Further Out of Focus
By Patrick J. McDonnell and Paul Richter, Times Staff Writers

BAGHDAD — Two years ago, as the U.S. planned to march into Baghdad, many in the Bush administration had a vision for Iraq's first freely elected government in decades. It would be a pro-U.S. regime that would support American military bases, embrace U.S. businesses and serve as a model for democracy in the region.

Now as Ibrahim Jafari seems certain to become Iraq's new prime minister, the U.S. faces the prospect of dealing with a government whose views may be closer to Tehran's than to Washington's. And U.S. officials are left wondering how many of their assumptions will prove true. ...

... some Iraqis and foreign observers note that Jafari heads Iraq's oldest Islamist party, and they worry he will seek to impose a more religious government than he lets on. They note that he has been lukewarm to the U.S. presence in Iraq and has said he would like to see U.S. troops withdraw once Iraqi forces are trained.

Another way McDonald and Richter could have said the last sentence is, "Jafari supports the same exit strategy the President supports." But they didn't, and more importantly, they should have taken a closer look at what it could mean to have a Shi'ite prime ministerof a free and democratic Iraq next door to the nuke-building Mullahs.

If I'm a repressed Iranian, am I more likely to say, "Let's make Iraq like Iran," or "Let's make Iran like Iraq?" The latter, of course. Jafari says he recognizes the unique ethnoreligious make-up of Iraq and will honor it, which means an Iranian theocracy won't be coming any time soon to Baghdad -- and each day it doesn't, opposition to Tehran's mullahs will grow.

The LAT tries to draw comparisons between Jafari and Khomeni, but they can offer nothing substantive, while there is considerable evidence to the contrary, including this, which the LAT shares with us, but doesn't persue at all, content to follow more negative bunny trails: "Jafari and other Shiite leaders have noted the Arab character of their slate and say they resent the second-class treatment of Arabs in Iran, which has a Persian majority."

Things could still to terribly wrong, with Iraq sliding into the chaos of civil war, snuffing out the spark of freedom that is now glowing in Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, Syria and Palestine. But every day, the trend is positive. What a drag for the nabobs of negativity at the LAT, NYT and WaPo.