Iraq Goes To The Polls Again

Iraqis are spending the day voting on the constitution that the various political factions hammered out over the past several months. This is a big deal. A real big deal.

Why?

Because it is a look at a country that is taking its first steps into putting the rule of law into effect over the rules of a dictator or tyrant. Sure, the earlier elections in Iraq were a significant show of the power of democratic action, but they are now voting on a constitution that will govern various aspects of government and provide both the flexibility to let Iraqis deal with issues as they arise, but strong enough that it will not let various factions rip Iraq apart.

Others who have important contributions on this include, Iraq the Model, who says

It is really amazing how things have changed in Iraq; three years ago Saddam “won” 100% of the votes in a pathetic referendum that he designed in order to give legitimacy to his reign while yesterday even security detainees were allowed to express their opinion on the constitution through voting and the government and parliament are almost begging the 15 million plus voters to say ‘yes’!

And although many signs indicate that the document is on its way to be ratified, no one can say it is until the people decide which checkbox to tic tomorrow.

Some people would say “Is that all you won, after more than two years of war and violence? That’s only one basic right” well, that is the point; we’ve secured one key right that can help us secure the rest.

He gets it. Which is more than can be said of the New York Times, which instead wants to focus on problems and the threat of violence.

Chester is liveblogging the voting. Publius is also covering the voting. He notes the following:

Terrorism was minimal, with only three relatively unsuccessful attacks wounding two police officers and one civilian — which, out of 6,000 polling stations, is a highly ineffective 0.05% success rate. It does indeed look as though the Iraqi and coalition security forces are able to maintain the peace while locking down infrastructure; I expect that as the Iraqi forces continue to ramp up in the coming months, they’ll rapidly outpace the terrorists and develop the capacity to hold the peace without restricting Iraqis’ rights. But, then, that’s hardly a surprise: it doesn’t take much sense to see that wantonly murdering Iraqis is unlikely to be a useful recruiting strategy aimed at Iraqis.

This goes hand in hand with what the al Zawahiri letter said - the violence by al Qaeda and the other terrorists operating in Iraq has backfired on the terrorists. Instead of getting people to come out against the US, it has had the opposite effect.

UPDATE:
Submitted to the Wizbang! Carnival of the Trackbacks XXXIII; Stop the ACLU Carnival of Trackbacks.

UPDATE:
Polling has closed. Only a few scattered reports of violence throughout Iraq, with no fatalities. Looks like the terrorists lost again. Iraq Elections News has more. Iraq the Model now has some photos up and links to others who have posted elections related photos. Turnout looks like it will be about 70% nationwide, though there are some areas where the turnout was lower.

Technorati: election, voting, iraq, constitution, election.