The Land of the Purple Finger

Bucking the Odds

As Egypt “counts its votes” and Syria prepares for its own bogus elections in early June, a real and highly consequential democratic process continues into a critical phase in another Arab country where such a thing was for decades even more unlikely: Iraq.

Bartle Bull, an author and journalist who has contributed from Iraq for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Washington Post, and other publications, is the former foreign editor of Prospect Magazine. He manages a fund that invests on the Baghdad stock exchange, and his next book is a history of Iraq.