Iraq: elections tomorrow

The headlines are flying fast and furious. Iraq's president says most Iraqis won't vote for fear of dying, and that's probably pretty reasonable, since even Andrew Sullivan gives as his criteria for a successful election less than 500 Iraqis killed (which is pretty screwed up).

I don't know if elections conducted under such a situation will really the start of a stable democratic government or not. But I sure damn hope so. Even if the Iraq war is the result of malicious and purposeful idiocy by a wreckless administration, I'll be as happy as anybody if twenty years from now Iraq is a model of democracy in a place where people like me thought democracy could never work. I'll be thrilled if the highly-touted democracy domino effect actually has more merit than the 'zero' that I give it.

But if these elections turn out well with regards to turn out among the various ethnics groups and selection of someone that Iraqis actually like and who isn't a Saddam Hussein-level asshole, that's that much quicker our kids get to come home, and that much quicker that Iraqis can maybe walk the street without fear of something insanely horrible happenning to them. And that seems like only a good thing.