So which is it?

You couldn't get much more divergent views of the situation in Iraq and the MidEast than the ones expressed by Wretchard on the one hand and Gregory Djerejian on the other.

Wretchard sees democracy changing the MidEast for the better.

The outcome is far from foregone. The great likelihood is that the Palestinian and Iraqi elections, far from pouring oil to calm the waters, is likely to ignite them. While there may be a reduction in physical violence, the elections herald a shift in the ethnic balance of power and inaugurate a new standard for a political change in the Middle East. The US is calculating that its armed forces and political process will give it the edge in the tectonic upheavals that it will itself provoke.

Gregory sees a disaster in the MidEast leading to lessened American influence and a chastened superpower (quoting Takyeh.)

The 9/11 attacks demonstrated that the root cause of Islamist terrorism was a dysfunctional political order that succeeded only in producing unpalatable dictatorships, stagnant economies, and militant ideologies. For a brief moment, the administration was transfixed by a vision of using US power to remake the Middle East. But a crestfallen America entangled in Iraq seems to have abandoned its idealistic aspirations to the point that it now favors working with the same unsavory regimes that promise the chimera of stability.

So who is right?

Only time will tell for sure, but I am an optimist. I believe the Iraqi elections will go forward, as did the Afghani. I believe that democracy in some form in Iraq is inevitable.

One of Wretchard's commenters perhaps puts it best when he states

Goes back to the previous commentary on Tommy Franks. For some reason, critics with no clue as to the high level of plain old brainpower behind OEF & OIF, simply accept good results as serendipity while finding idiocy in every indentifiable cost. I agree with the post, that the coming elections will in fact so increase the already-vibrating old regimes that they will be unable to hold down their own people very much longer. Sheds a little more light on the manner in which the coalition military has been fighting the insurgency. I'm sure the terror-masters would've loved to've seen B-52 strikes on Fallujah. The as-light-a-hand-as-possible-and-only-when-necessary anti-insurgency response is known and understood by the indigs, and is the central fact around which the Pentagon & White House is winning this war to rescue the mideast, and prevent a major world-war over the oilfields.

Our Nov 2 election may have saved the old blue orb from mighty wailing and gnashing to come. Hope and pray that success continues. Already reports are coming in that the blood-lust propaganda directed at Israel is beginning to dry up.

I think this is the crux of the issue.

Those who see the administration as a bunch of loutish clods who can't tie their shoes and chew gum at the same time see only failure on the horizon. Those who detect brilliance in the vision the administration has, see a perhaps muted but still successful outcome. The "experts" see only failure because they look to the past - the Iraq (and MidEast) of old. Those who sense success on the horizon detect a change in the air - a new desire for true freedom in a longsuffering region of the world.

Indeed the first indications of change have already begun to blossom. Relations between Egypt and Israel are thawing for the first time in four years.

Egypt is generating new hope for Mideast peace after four bleak years, transforming Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from pariah to peacemaker and seeking to draw Arab leaders and a wary public into its efforts.

The peace drive has included appeals to Arab rulers to support the new Palestinian leadership and an economic deal Tuesday that is arguably the biggest step in Israeli-Egyptian relations in 25 years.

Egypt appears determined to show Israel and President Bush, who has said a Palestinian state by 2009 is realistic, that the matter can be settled in 2005.

Palestinians are thinking peace for the first time in quite a while.

Palestinians are looking to next month's election to replace Yasser Arafat as a new opportunity for peace and perhaps the first real democracy in the Arab world — and their support for violent militants appears to be waning, polls say.

"We want to live freely, to live like other human beings, to feel peace and security, not to worry about the future of my sons," said Hisham Karm, 33, speaking on a Gaza street.

Even Hamas leaders are beginning to realize this may be their best, last hope for peace and a state of their own.

In an apparent change in long-standing policy, a top Hamas leader said Friday the militant group would accept the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as a long-term truce with Israel.

Hamas' statement came as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (search) described Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (search) as the Palestinians' best chance for peace.

Meanwhile, Libya has given up its WMD programs voluntarily and is, as Muammar Ghaddafi's own son, Safi puts it, "very enthusiastic to have cooperation with the rest of the world, to bring democratic standards to the Middle East, because sometimes we need to impose something on our countries from a global level."

Unless one is unnecessarily pessimistic, signs point to a change taking place in Arabian culture, a momentum building toward democracy. If it comes to pass, will it still be possible to call Bush an idiot, or to accuse the administration of failure in Iraq? Ten years ago, could anyone have even envisioned the changes that have already taken place, much less the ones appearing on the horizon?