I admit...

...to mixed emotions about the early reports about the Iraqi elections. I'm grateful that the death toll among voters didn't reach the level of my worst fears, but it's hard to celebrate dozens of peole dying in the act of voting. The higher than expected turnout claims seem encouraging, but they were achieved at a high cost - strict curfews, severe travel restrictions and a get-out-the-vote drive that prominently featured armored columns of occupation forces. I'm also wondering how they had such confident turnout statistics apparently before the polls even closed, although it's reported that "Preliminary voting figures are expected to be known Monday or Tuesday, although final results will not be available for about 10 days."

Since the identities of the actual candidates and the programs of the actual parties never seemed very clear, most voters were turning out in response to the demands of the cleric of their choice, making the elections more a matter of theological as opposed to political imperatives, with a climate of fear overshadowing the entire event.

Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?

Right now I'm inclined to line up with John Nichols, writing in The Nation that...

That democracy has been denied in Iraq is beyond question. The charade of an election, played out against a backdrop of violence so unchecked that a substantial portion of the electorate-- particularly Sunni Muslims--avoided the polls for reasons of personal safety, featuring candidates who dared not speak their names and characterized by a debate so stilted that the electorate did not know who or what it is electing.

Now that this farce of an "election" in Iraq is done, the fight for democracy should move from Baghdad to Washington. It is in the US Capitol that members of Congress, if they are serious about spreading democracy abroad and strengthening it at home, need to begin advocating for the rapid withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

...and Politus, who sees the election as day one the civil war (thought I think the civil war's been underway somewhat longer than that)...

Depending on who votes and who counts the votes, one group of Iraqis will rule another, and the blood hatred between these groups extends back centuries and boils on the cultural memories of sectarian ravages and atrocities. All of democracy’s blessings cannot heal those old wounds, at least not at first without decades of pent-up score settling and retribution.

In fact, the Iraqi elections will likely make little positive difference in Iraq, and they make no difference at all to this simple truth, well stated by Nichols...

Liberty is not spread at gunpoint, nor by the occupation of distant lands. There will be no real democracy in Iraq until the occupation of that country has ended.