Summer Soldiers and Sunshine Patriots

For everyone who thinks the US foreign policy has had no effect, consider this: In the summerof 2003, prior to my posting to Iraq, I went to Kuwait to cover its national elections. The shorthand as I wrote on July 4, 2003, was this:

There are about 2.1 million people here, of whom about 1 million are citizens but only about 120,000 of those are permitted to vote. No women are among them. Got that? 2003. 2.1 million people. No women could vote. Pretty typical of the Persian Gulf States back in the day.

Since that time, women have been granted the right to vote in Kuwait (as well as most of the other countries) and, more that than, women have been appointed Ministers of Cabinet-level Departments. I bring this up because on Friday I was invited to attend the swearing-in ceremony of a career Foreign Service Officer to be the new US Ambassador to Kuwait.

The new Ambassador's name is: Deborah K. Jones.

Five years ago, the suggestion that the United States - or any other nation - would dare to send a female Ambassador to a Gulf State would have been laughable...

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