So have you heard much about the recent elections in Iraq? No? Oh right, the media didn't really report on it because there were no major incidents and the process was overwhelmingly peaceful. It doesn't fit the media's narrative of Iraq as a complete failure, so the story gets buried. But Amer Taheri has the details in the New York Post:

This was the first election entirely organized and protected by Iraqis: No foreign troops guarded the polling stations or escorted vulnerable voters. Yet the election took place without major incidents. (Three candidates were murdered, ostensibly by tribal rivals, and two suicide-bombing attempts were halted.) In 2005, going to the polls was an act of heroism in the face of terrorists determined to nip the new democracy in the bud.

Although the parties in the Maliki-led governing coalition had a built-in advantage, thanks to their access to state resources, almost all ended up as losers.

Maliki's own party, Al-Dawa (The Call), is set to emerge as the largest bloc in the assemblies of four of the 10 mainly Shiite provinces. (It now enjoys such a position in just one, Karbala - and interim results show that Dawa has been pushed into second place by a secularist list in Karbala.)

The Islamic Party of Iraq, the chief Arab Sunni outfit in the coalition, looks set for defeat in three of the four states where the community accounts for a majority of the population.

The reason why Maliki's party has done so well?

For the last year or so, Maliki has propelled his wing of Dawa away from Islamism. All the parties that had the words "Islamic" or "Arab" in their names lost. By contrast, all those that had the words "Iraq" or "Iraqi" gained.

This is incredibly significant. Not only did Islamist-labeled parties lose big, but Iranian-supported parties also suffered heavy losses, and even Moqtada al-Sadr's group only picked up 3 percent of the vote. Positive change is happening in Iraq, if only the world would notice.

When people look back in twenty years, providing things keep progressing there and we keep providing material and technical support, this creation of a functioning democracy for fifty million people out of a brutal dictatorship will be the best thing the Bush Asministration managed to do in eight years. Some may still be argung about the reasons for the war, but no one will be able to deny the success that has occurred.