OK, just one word about the elections

As for the Iraqi elections, I'm glad to see them.   I don't have much to add to what's been written everywhere else.   The elections are far more significant than the "transfer of sovereignty" or the passage of the TAL, two earlier "turning points", for one big reason:  they involved the actual participation of the Iraqi people, rather than just negotiations between appointed councils and the Americans.  And that's important. 

I argued a long time ago that elections should be held, whatever the risks, and I'm glad that they went through despite all the problems and shortcomings.   Special thanks to Ali Sistani for frustrating Bush administration plans to avoid them, and kudos to the Bush team for perservering in holding the elections in the face of great pressures to postpone them.  All of the arguments for postponing paled, in my mind, in the face of the reality that things weren't getting better, and no time in the future was likely to be a more secure or ideal time for voting.  Postponing elections in fragile new democracies is generally a bad idea - too much of a temptation for the autocratically inclined. 

Elections are only the beginning, of course, and I hope that nobody expects miracles from them, or gets too frustrated when it turns out that all of the problems haven't gone away after all.  But it's great to see elections in Iraq, and the discussions of them in the Arab media (even if those are rather less unprecedented than many people seem to think... al Jazeera programs talk about elections all the time), and to have some hope for the future.

And that's it. Now, really and truly, back to work.