Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

This from the Washington Post , not a bastion of neo-conservativism: Last weekend’s vote, which occurred during one of the calmest periods Iraq has experienced since the U.S. invasion, was a political triumph. Though results are still preliminary, they show that voters strongly rewarded Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for his forceful action against extremist militias and his secular nationalist agenda — and punished religious parties perceived as too sectarian or too close to Iran. The nonsectarian alliance of former prime minister Ayad Allawi also appears to have done well, and nationalist Sunnis gained influence in areas where they had lacked it because of previous election boycotts. In short, Iraq appears to have taken a step toward becoming the moderate Arab democracy that the Bush administration long hoped for. … Mr. Maliki’s State of Law ticket appears to have finished first in Baghdad, in the southern port of Basra and in every southern province but one.

Jason Horowitz asks in the New York Observer what do the Democrats propose to do in Iraq now that they have seized effective control of the legislature? Some of the answers are surprising “It’s a very different calculus, meanwhile, for those Democrats harboring hopes of capturing the White House in 2008. As the killing in Baghdad intensifies—and almost everyone believes that it will continue to do so—some potential candidates are trying to articulate coherent positions now. They understand that this issue isn’t simply going to disappear in the next two years, and they argue that opposition alone doesn’t constitute a credible foreign-policy position. “‘The question is, are you just going to fold up and leave regardless of the situation on the ground, or can you, through diplomacy, try and craft a more favorable exit?’ said Gen. Wesley Clark, one likely Presidential nominee. ‘My argument is that you can.’ “General Clark has a unique perspective among prospective candidates. He acted a...