LONDON -- Is Iraq getting better or worse? One side thinks things are settling down under the new Iraqi government and that, while security is still very bad, the prospect is opening for a democratic Iraq that is prosperous and benign, and exerts a positive and stabilizing influence on the whole of a reforming Middle East region.
These are the optimists, and for them the bottle is half full and slowly filling.
The other side, the pessimists, see the bottle as half empty and steadily draining. They believe it will all end in disaster, with Iraq crumbling in civil strife and bloodshed, neighboring states like Saudi-Arabia destabilized, terrorism boosted and America (and its coalition friends) humiliated.