Sigh.

That's the sound of a global sigh of relief, mind you, now that El Presidente has decreed that the U.S. will begin expediting the transition to Iraqi "self-rule". Apparently, the Iraqi people have been expressing interest in becoming "more involved in the governance of their country," according to President Bush in yesterday's remarks on the subject of the post-war transition of power.

Well, with that in mind, it's nice to know the United States has been victorious in the cliched "battle of hearts and minds" that Rumsfeld et al kept championing throughout the spring and summer. Just check out these editorial cartoons from the Arab press as collected by Al-Jazeera, the noted television news mouthpiece of the Arab world. The caption for the strip above, incidentally, is as follows: "You see! Democracy is good. Isn't it?"

Why, there's hardly any anti-American sentiment in sight.