An election surely isn't a panacea. It's not going to stop violence in its tracks, and it's not going to mean the insurgency rolls up and goes home. But it does start the process of reform in a real and tangible way, by giving the election winners--of any party or ethnic group--a reason to stay in power (and any majority a reason to keep them there). After WWII, SCAP's policy in Japan was to institute land reforms, break up family ownership of the economy, and break down old class structures precisely in order to create new interest groups with a share in the new regime. This is one more step towards a similar solution.

I wouldn't want to say with certainty that this democratization process will work: the war thus far has proven difficult on the crystal-ball gazers on all sides. But I also wonder about those who are counseling doom. Juan Cole is "appalled" at the "cheerleading" nature of the news coverage, and his blog has been a great way of keeping track of bad news. Prof. Bainbridge and Instapundit have been joining in a near-obsessive conservative linkfest to prophets of doom. It's not been tough to find people who, when faced with a spot of bright sunshine on the horizon, are quick to point out the rainclouds. My one wonder there is: "What if this works?"

Whenever I would point out parallels between the Japanese and Iraqi experience--by no means identical, but certainly with some justice--many friends would go through an entire litany of why things are different. But really, they're not so different: we've just forgotten that in 1945, it looked like we might fail. Disagreements between Acheson and MacArthur, for instance, are long forgotten, and those who said that Japan could never be "democratized" are not taught, not known, not learned of. Now it's commonplace to say that Japan was fertile soil in which democracy could take root. (And indeed, in many senses it was.) But we forget that many in the "reality-based" community did not see it as such at the time.

The election is over now: there are four more years in which Iraq has a chance to improve. In the meantime, voices saying that the election cannot have legitimacy will be frozen in place forever, through the magic of the Google cache if nothing else. What will Dean, or Kerry, or those who claimed this was 'the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time' say in 2008 if the country is relatively peaceful, experiencing economic growth, and settling in nicely to democracy?

History remembers MacArthur. Until now, the "reality-based community" tended to be forgotten whenever reality changed around them. But digital memory persists, and on that basis alone I'm amazed at these steadfast predictions of failure.