424 Resisting Publics
blogspot.com/, written by two young Iraqi men, Omar and Mohammed;
and http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/arabic/, a Web site probably written by
an Iraqi Shi‘i hostile to U.S. occupation. For one of the best Iraqi blogs, see
http://shekomakoiniraq.blogspot.com/, which has a very sophisticated set of
articles on a wide variety of political, historical and cultural topics.- am wrote extensively, whether by his own hand or with the help of Sadd
ghost writers, on the topic of the rewriting of Iraqi history. See, for exam-
ple, Saddam Husayn, Hawla Kitabat al-Tarikh [On the Writing of History]
(Baghdad: Dar al-Hurriyya li-l-Tiba‘a, 1979). - e following section draws heavily on my Th Strategies for Promoting
Democracy in Iraq, Special Report No 152 (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute
of Peace, October 2005); and “The New Iraq.” - e of the unfortunate aspects of postwar United States policy in Iraq, On
and of many well-meaning Western NGOs, is to try and encourage change
solely through the use of concepts and strategies of democratization
derived from either the West or from Western efforts at democratization
in other countries, e.g., the Balkans. For a critique of United States foreign
policy in Iraq, see my “Domino Democracy: Challenges to United States
Foreign Policy in a Post-Saddam Middle East,” in Patriotism, Democracy
and Common Sense: Restoring America’s Promise at Home and Abroad,
edited by Fred R. Harris and Lynn A. Curtis (Landham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, 2004), 201–218; and “Prospects for Democracy in
Iraq,” E-Notes, Foreign Policy Research Institute, 30 June 2004. - e Th Journal of Popular Culture began to be published again after 2003 with
the same high quality that characterized its articles even under the Ba‘thist
regime. - effrey Gettleman, “Assassinations Tear Into Iraq’s Educated Class,” J
New York Times, 7 February 2004; Oliver Poole, “Killings Lead to Brain
Drain from Iraq,” Daily Telegraph, 4 April 2006; Bryan Bender and Farah
Stockman, “Iraq’s Violent ‘Brain Drain’ Called a Threat to Future: Killers
Target Academics, Professionals,” Boston Globe, 30 November 2006;
Associated Press, “Judge Gunned Down in Baghdad,” 14 January 2008. - e of the most powerful demonstrations of Iraqi nationalism, one which On
included all Iraq’s constituent ethnic groups, was the outpouring of sup-
port for the Iraqi national soccer team after it defeated Saudi Arabia and
won the Asia Cup on 29 July 2007. Significantly, Kurds who flew the Iraqi