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OK, I'm getting sick of hearing this.

Recently, even My Personal Hero has succumbed to the temptation to give the neo-conservatives credit for the string of better than terrible news that has come out of the Middle East.

Could they have been right all along? Was attacking Iraq the right thing to do? I mean, look -- there was a pretty successful election in Iraq, Egypt has announced a surprise reform to allow more than one person to run for president, and now Lebanon is finally throwing off their Syrian yoke! And there's a cease-fire in Israel and Palestine. Roses! They're throwing roses at freedom's inexorable march through the streets of Baghdad, Beirut, Jerusalem, and even Cairo. It's just like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz said it would happen -- after Iraq, the whole region will experience a democratic revolution!

Bullshit. Leaving aside the fact that Bush told us we went to Iraq not for the sake of "democracy" but for the express purpose of destroying weapons of mass destruction (and now he's fallen back to this "democracy" BS), each of these developments do not add up to a trend.

Let's talk about what hasn't happened. Saudi Arabia is still a remarkably oppressive dictatorship. Syria isn't much better, and neither is Yemen, Oman, the Emirates, and let's just leave Iran alone for the time being. There is no trend of democratization in the Middle East, and it's silly to pretend that the Bush administration really wants Saudi Arabia to have free and open elections -- they are all about propping up that dictatorship.

As for what has happened -- it is clearly good news that Egypt will change their basic law to allow more than one person to appear on the presidential ballot. But President Mubarak has put all of his serious opponents in jail. There is little chance that a thriving opposition will suddenly appear because of this change.

Lebanon. This is completely unrelated to Iraq. The Syrian occupation of Lebanon started a long time ago. The devastating assassination of Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister would be analogous to someone assassinating Bill Clinton -- this guy was popular. And the anger has boiled over into the streets, forcing the resignation of Syria's puppet government in Beirut. It's too early, unfortunately, to call Lebanon an independent democracy. And I'm pretty sure that this kind of uprising in Lebanon would have happened whether we trashed Iraq or not.

And the elections in Iraq were relatively successful, which of course is great news. The brave Iraqi people deserve all of the credit for this success. Now, as soon as the bumbling US occupiers can keep the electricity on and keep bombings from killing hundreds of people every month, then we can talk about a success for US policy. We're a long way off from those very basic goals.

As for the situation in Israel and Palestine, I'll agree that it's looking more hopeful than at any other moment in the last four years. But there's still a long way to go, and again, if we hadn't gone into Iraq, I'm sure we'd still have seen similar developments in Jerusalem and Ramallah.

I'm all for good news from the Middle East. But Bush, Wolfowitz, and their ilk deserve none of the credit.