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Reporting from Baghdad -- A young Sunni man strolling along the Tigris River hesitated when asked whom he had voted for in provincial elections Saturday. Then he gave an answer that would have seemed unthinkable during the depths of Iraq's bloody civil war: "Our prime minister" -- the Shiite head of government, Nouri Maliki.
Along Haifa Street, where high-rises once served as shooting galleries for Sunni gunmen battling U.S. troops, another Sunni voter was coy about his choice but hinted that he too was pleased with the job Maliki has done.
"Definitely I'm happy," the elderly man said when asked his opinion of the current state of affairs in Iraq.
"When there are insurgents on the Sunni side, he hits them. When there are insurgents on the Shiite side, he hits them,"
the riverside stroller, Wissam Hussam, said of Maliki, whom he initially distrusted on sectarian grounds but has grown to admire. [snip]
Election officials and police reported no major violence, compared with Jan. 30, 2005, voting in which more than 40 people were killed. Many adults headed to vote with children in tow*, a sign that the security fears of the past were gone.
[* and that's the real end game here: the next generation. Current adults in Iraq will always be cynical/susceptible to reverting to the 'old ways'. But once the current generation of educated (including girls) and voting children becomes the majority of adults, it's game-set-match: there'll be no going back. The turn around from worst to now is shaping up {knock on wood} to be one of this nation's/military's finest accomplishments.]
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