Quote:Batool Al Musawi hesitated for a single moment.

The explosions had already begun as she rose from her bed early on Sunday. One after the other, the mortar shells were falling and bursting around the city, rattling the windows and shaking the walls.

For an instant, Ms. Musawi, a 22-year-old physical therapist, thought it might be too dangerous to go to the polls.

"And then, hearing those explosions, it occurred to me--the insurgents are weak, they are afraid of democracy, they are losing," Ms. Musawi said, standing in the Marjayoon Primary School, her polling place. "So I got my husband, and I got my parents and we all came out and voted together."

<a href='http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110006232' target='_blank'>Iraqis Jubilent and Full of Resolve</a>


....much to the chagrin of the left.