TIME magazine frequently quotes back issues snippets in the Notebook section. In the current issue (declaring Dubya “Man of the Year”) they look at a TIME cover story from 1957, which had Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri as-Said on the cover. Quoting in part:

The population of Baghdad has doubled in five years (to about 1 million) , and the capital is booming. Streets are jammed with American cars, creating a monumental traffic problem that the Development Board’s new bridges over the Tigris have not begun to solve. The board’s bulldozers are flatenning 300 slum houses and bazaar shops to open a new freeway through the city center… Says a senior U.S. diplomat: “We feel Iraq is potentially if not right now the brighest spot in [the Middle East]. There’s hope to build something solid.”

And that was, of course, from 1957.

I don’t quote this to jab at TIME. It just goes to show that we should guard against unwarranted optimism. And I say that to myself just as much as I would wag my finger at an optimistic liberal.

There are so many countries that have potentially bright futures: Thailand, Turkey, Romania, Chile… but the above should remind us that there is nothing to guarantee a country a bright future. Even if they are progressing along the lines of free(er) markets and democratic reform, there is plenty that could go wrong.

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