Getting beyond all the self-congratulatory hype in the American media, the London Independent offers this perspective from Iraq:
“The Americans have repeatedly charged that Iran was interfering in the election and bankrolling Shia Islamist parties such as Dawa and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) – both part of the Sistani list – with $20m (£10.6m). Waleed Ketan of the Iraqi National Accord, a secular party, claimed that Syed al-Battat, the man running the poll in the south for the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq, had been a member of SCIRI and most of the election station managers in Basra were SCIRI sympathisers.
“‘The list with SCIRI has a chance of winning because they have taken over the polling stations,’ he said. ‘If that happens I shall leave the country, I do not want to live in an Islamist state.’
“Some voters were more sceptical. Moqtada Ali Riadh, 53, an engineer, said: ‘I am voting for List 169, and I fought in the war against Iran. This is Iraq, not Iran. What the Americans are saying is just to divide the people. We should take no notice.’
“Others insist that the elections are a sham. Hazim Abed Allakif, the head of the students’ union at Basra University, said ‘People standing at the elections can only do so with the permission of the US and Britain. We regard them as agents. These are not free elections.'”