ELECTION DRAMA IN IRAQ – AT 8:19 P.M. ET:  It seems that politicians have the same complaints all over the world.  Iraq recently held a general election, but the ballots are still being counted.  There are, uh, accuracy issues:

BAGHDAD -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki saw his political coalition's lead in Iraq' parlimentary elections slip on Tuesday. He charged that the national electoral commission was manipulating results and demanded a recount in Baghdad, home to the nation's largest group of voters.

"Baghdad" is Arabic for "Chicago."

Maliki's State of Law bloc has seen its lead narrow with 79 percent of the ballots from the March 7 parliamentary elections counted. Its fiercest competition has come from secular Shiite Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister who heads the Iraqiya bloc, favored by Sunni Arabs. News services reported that Allawi's coalition moved ahead in the popular vote count on Tuesday, though it was still behind in the more important province-by-province results, which determine how seats in parliament are apportioned.

It may take months to work this out, but it is democracy, and a democracy that we largely created.  The key now is whether Obama will allow enough American troops to remain in Iraq to keep things stable as the new government is formed.  There are still elements that will try to bring the country back to violence.

But let's not forget that it was President Bush who believed in the surge, against massive ridicule, and saw it through to success.  Obama will not mention that, reflecting the usual gracelessness of this administration. 

March 16, 2010