On the night after the election Robin Wright seemed to have a different take on the Iraqi election. I guess someone changed her mind. Here’s an excerpt from CNN’s Larry King:

KING: And Congresswoman Harman in Washington, as frequent and often on with us with Christopher Shays, what’s your reaction?

REP. JANE HARMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, Larry, I observed the first free elections in Chile, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, and the scenes are very similar. People in their Sunday best with the indelible ink on their fingers, smiling and laughing. But my question is, what will the scene be like a month from now?

I am truly worried about how we keep stability in the country. Remember, today we had 300,000 security troops, half ours and half theirs, and helicopter over-flights and a lockdown for three days. We actually had an intelligence success. This might have been our first. We predicted what would happen and we prevented it.

But over time now, the Iraqi security has to phase in. The face of America has to be reduced. And we have threats all over the region, especially in Iran, that we need to pay more attention to now. And Iran may be an unintended victor today, in the sense that now there will be a Shia majority in neighboring Iraq, as well. And we’ve been preoccupied there for so long that Iran has had a chance to build up its nuclear and missile capability without too much attention.

So I worry about a month from now and a year from now. I’d love to see these people dancing in the streets then, after two more successful elections at the end of the year. That’s what the challenge is.

KING: Michael Weisskopf, do you share Jane Harman’s concern?

WEISSKOPF: Yes. And I would add to that, that whenever we get too euphoric about Iraq, we end up paying the price big-time. And this has got to be seen with a certain perspective. And the perspective is that, while extraordinary numbers turned out, that this was an election which was orchestrated by our government and it was also supported by a ruling — or at least a majority religious community, the Shia community. And they are capable of delivering many millions with a Friday prayer service in that direction.

So it’s best to see this as an important event and look at it quickly through our rear-view mirror and see how it’s going to look a month from now or many months from now.

KING: Robin?

WRIGHT: Well, I guess I share those concerns. But I’d also say that there are many in Iraq, including the senior cleric Ayatollah Sistani, who was said over and over again that they don’t want to copy Iran’s theocratic system, that, in fact, they want a secular constitution, in which Islam plays an important role, but that doesn’t call for religious rule by the clerics. And there’s a tremendous difference between Arabs in Iraq and Persians in Iran. They’ve fought wars. They’ve been hostile to each other in the past. They continue to be political rivals. And, while they are brother in that they’re both dominated by Shiite Muslim majorities, they have very different visions, different traditions, different nationalisms. At the end of the day, when the two countries fought a war, Iraqi Shiites were loyal to Baghdad and did not move across the border into Iran. So I think there are tremendous differences between these two countries. And I frankly think that we are a country that has strong Judeo-Christian values in our Constitution — reflected in our Constitution and that Iraq — most Iraqis, anyway — really want to see Islamic values reflected in their constitution, but that’s different from having an Islamic rule.Update: Wright responds here.