MORE SIGNS OF PROGRESSThe interim Iraqi government is set, and the Iraqi Governing Council has been disolved.

The first post-Saddam Hussein government was unveiled here, as Washington and London presented a revised UN resolution that sets a rough date for US-led troops to leave Iraq.

Iraq's interim Governing Council Tuesday was dissolved and the new transitional executive presented to the public: Sunni Muslim tribal magnate Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar was named president and 33 ministries were parceled out along religious and ethnic lines among the country's Sunnis, Shiite Muslims and Kurds.

Iyad Allawi, a US-backed former Baathist dissident, had already been picked as prime minister Friday.

Geez...looks as if the USA, once again, has kept its word despite handwringing over American imperialism, blood for oil, and other very, very tired cliche's.

Is anyone really surprised?

Of course now we will be subjected to endless discussions about the imperfections of this Iraqi government, reminders that it wasn't elected, and many crocodile tears that it, well, should somehow be better!

Perhaps now would be a good time for a brief review of United States history.

America was born in 1776...right? Well, sort of. We declared our independence in 1776...but of course, the British had a vote in all this. So how long did it take before that little spat was settled? A year? Three? Five?

No...you see, by the standards of the media in the 21st century, the American Revolutionary War was a real quagmire. Seven years! The Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, officially ending the war between the US and Great Britain.

But at least when we declared our independence we had a functioning government and a good framework for getting things done...right? I mean, the constitution guided us through these early days...right? Uh...no. As a matter of fact the Constitution wouldn't come into play until TWELVE YEARS after we declared our independence...ratified in 1788.

Oh...but we did have the Articles of Confederation that functioned similar to a constitution...right? Yes...we did...five years after we declared our independence. The Articles were ratified in 1781. However, six years later these were seen as so flawed that a constitutional convention was called to revise them. Turns out they were so broken it was easier to throw them out and start over.

Well...certainly though we at least had a general agreement on the way things ought to work in a Democracy...right? Well, frankly, no. You may have snoozed through this in high school history class but perhaps the greatest debate democracy has ever seen existed between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton over the nature of man and the nature of a Democracy (do you recall any discussion of the Federalist Papers? No? Now do you have an answer to the question you asked in high school, "Why do I need to know this stuff?"?)

So...when you read and hear the talking heads discussing how poorly this new Iraqi government is doing, consider please that our own history teaches us the lesson we've mentioned here over and over and over.

Folks, this is hard. Worthy, attainable, necessary...but hard.