AUSTIN BAY on the Iraqi elections:

I spent the summer of 2004 on military duty in Iraq, and the January elections were a constant subject of discussion. Iraqis told me the election was their “big chance,” the opportunity to escape the legacy of dictatorship. One Shia I met in Baghdad told me to beware of “your American view of us.” He insisted that “you divide us in ways we do not divide ourselves.”

He attacked the “American” view that Iraq’s Shia, Sunni and Kurd would inevitably clash along ethnic and religious lines. “We are more nationalistic than you think,” he warned me. “You will see that in the election.”

Another Iraqi (a well-heeled Sunni) told me he agreed with that assessment. He said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his terrorists would fail to ignite a Shia-Sunni war. “We have a more secular tradition than other Arab countries,” he said. Neither man thought elections were magic — they were an opportunity, not a guarantee.

Read the whole thing. Austin has further thoughts on his blog.