To mark the three-year anniversary of the Coalition going into Iraq, National Review Online gathered a group of experts for their read of how things are going. The entire symposium can be viewed here.  Michael Ledeen and Michael Rubin's comments are below.

Michael Ledeen

The president's speech Monday was fine as far as it goes, and the Tal Afar story is a great one (the public should have heard about it long since--ahem). Unfortunately, the speech doesn't go far enough, because yet again it was not about the war on terror, but about the defensive battle we are fighting in Iraq. The actual war involves Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, at a minimum, with Pakistan floating in the punch bowl.

The more interesting document is the text of the questions and answers. President Bush has Iran on his mind, as you can tell from the fact that he raised it gratuitously while responding to an Iraq question, then kind of apologized for raising it, then went back to it again. He said that we're looking for a diplomatic solution, which is the party line. Later on, someone asked him about the difference between the Iraq threat and the Iran threat, and he sounded like an assistant secretary of State instead of a president. He said that we had all those U.N. resolutions before we attacked Saddam, and we're just starting down that road with Iran.

No talk of democratic revolution. No mention that Iran is the leading sponsor of terrorism. No encouragement for the Iranian people. Instead, a cheerful reference to talks between our ambassador to Iraq and the Iranians, as if diplomacy could end a war that Iran has been waging against us for 27 years.

Pfui.

Michael Rubin

Success is evident: Iraqis can choose from dozens of television and radio channels, and scores of newspapers. Elections, political debate, and compromise are the norm. When chaos reigns, refugees flee. Why then have more than a million Iraqis returned to their country since liberation? Insurgency and terrorism are tragic. They were once to be found in Peru and Turkey as well. There, we did not undermine democracy with calls to strike deals with terrorists. Too many critics of President Bush treat Iraq as an excuse to grind political axes which have little or anything to do with Iraq. This is unfair to Iraqis.

Three years on, it is clear that success is not limited to Iraq. In 2005, Syria witnessed its two freest elections in a half century. How ironic, then, that only expatriate Iraqis could participate. While Arab regimes once sought to channel public anger to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Arab intellectuals and activists now debate dissent, reform, and democracy: Does top-down democratization have merits? The bottom-up approach? How to differentiate between NGOs and GONGOs (government-operated NGOs)? How best to support independent labor unions?

While bloggers may try to offer informed comment without ever stepping foot in Iraq, and journalists may focus on the daily blood, the greatest legacy of Iraq's liberation may be the new Middle Eastern discourse. Bush deserves credit for providing a catalyst. But it is the Iraqi people, Lebanese journalists, Egyptian dissidents, Tunisian bloggers, and many other courageous citizens who are alone responsible for creating a new, more democratic order.

Michael Ledeen is the Freedom Scholar at AEI. Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI.