I don’t normally do the link round-up thing, but today seems like a good day to make an exception:

• Steven Taylor rounds up posts on the Iraqi election, as well as providing a bit of perspective of his own:

  The bottom line is: not every event in the world is part of a game between Reps and Dems where one side scores and the other side falls behind. Too many people treat the world like one football game where their team can do no wrong, and the other team must lose.

• Leopold Stotch writes:

  Obviously the new Iraqi government has a Herculean task ahead of it, but this is a major turning point in modern history. The Iraqi people are the true winners, but the secondary winner is the American voter, who once again put US foreign policy on the right side of history. The losers: the jihadists, old Europe, and most of the Democrat party.

• Joe Gandelman looks at Auschwitz and the Iraqi elections in light of the current conflict with Wahabiism.

I have to say that the scenario as things have played out has been at the “optimistic” end of my general thinking about this process, but there’s a rather long road ahead. I tend to think this election is an important—and necessary—first step, both for the Iraqis and for the Arab world at large. Now the hard work of building a democratic and inclusive constitution begins.