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Leading by example

By Scott Bates, The Day

Listening to the steady beat of Johnny Cash while having a farewell drink with my colleagues, I looked around and realized that after a half- dozen trips to Iraq, this old team of ours is likely to break up soon.

Elections for Parliament are March 7, and all efforts are focused on working with candidates and their political parties to help in their efforts to connect effectively with voters. Gathered here to work with the Iraqis, our team has been assembled from the four corners of the Earth: Canada, Serbia, South Africa, Kosovo, Australia, Algeria, England and the U.S.

We have two things in common; a belief that democracy works, and a love of Johnny Cash.

American support for democratic institutions in places like Iraq is helped immeasurably by involving people from emerging democracies. It is one thing for Iraqis to hear from me the benefits of democratic governance, and quite another for them to hear it from Serbians and Bosnians who have had their own hard transition to democracy.

It is heartening to see that millions of Iraqis are participating in self-government, it is up to them to decide if they will live in peace and work within this system or something like it. All our team has hoped to do was to show them some options for their political future.

The evening draws to a close, I invite my friends to gather on July Fourth at our home in Stonington, to hear the reading of the Declaration of Independence on the town square. My English friend is quite taken with this.

And so today on to Dubai, and then Afghanistan.

Editor's note: Scott Bates is the vice president of the Center for National Policy and is currently in Iraq and Afghanistan, working with candidates for Parliament in Iraq and assessing the political parties in Afghanistan.