The Washington Post has sensible things to say about them, including this: “Iraq may not become a ’showcase’ of democracy anytime soon. But even flawed elections stand a chance of producing a government with more legitimacy and public support than most others in the Arab Middle East.” Also, David Brooks today makes a nice El Salvador analogy, another country that moved toward a democratic system even as it was wracked by violence. The standard here shouldn’t be perfection or anything close to it, but something better than what existed before.