Valerie, I hope you can forgive the following tirade --

I agree - the winner is Iraq, but as you know some of the MSM isn't giving up that easily.
They're determined to point out "voting irregulaties", "flawed elections", "under representation of the Sunnis", etc. As usual, they're furious that they were wrong and will continue to report the actions of the insurgents in a way designed to discourage those that would support the Iraqi people.
The statements that indicate the Sunnis were somehow disenfranchised by refusing to vote are at best assanine. At worst, they lend encouragment and comfort to a bunch of murderers who threaten the lives and interests of 10s of thousands in the region and beyond. I would never advocate censorship, but it is unbelievable to me the media elites at CNN, the BBC, etc. cannot place their egos second and the welfare of the region first.
I don't have trouble with them pointing out the obvious facts over and again that the government is a long way from being stable. What makes me angry e-nough to choke them are the inevitable comments like "it will clearly require the help of key EU countries to make the new Iraqi government stable". Well? What about it, do your jobs and apply some pressure to them. Try eating crow and doing the right thing for a change. Try helping the situation for a change, and down-play the insurgents' disenfranchised point of view. Remind them to vote next time.
This seems to be more about egos than it does about what is right, especially when analysts proclaim real support isn't likely as long as GWB is president. The "wounds have not had time to heal". And WE are the selfish ones?! Surely they know the sooner they get involved, the sooner they can start selling guns and rockets again.
If the MSM wants to maintain the moral high-ground, they need to apply pressure to the same "key members" they insist will be needed to make Iraq's new government a success.

So what did they win?
1. Freedom from tyrany.
They have a few problems to resolve with getting the insurgents out of Iraq, but that would be considered trivial compared to Saddams reign.
2. They also won the right to choose their own leaders and form of government. That in and of itself, is something that no other muslim country can truthfully claim. It also is what make the citizens from those countries envy Iraq and the governments fear it.
3. They have won the right to either A. run their country into the ground, or B. make it a standard for all other muslim countries to achieve. It`s their choice. That`s something else the other muslim countries can`t claim.

It's out of our hands now.
I have a fear that we will have another Iranian government. Sistani is Iranian.
Remember that line of women voters covered head to toe in black, that's a sign of where Iraq might be going. My original interpretation was that they were dressed for death in the event that the terrorists blew them to hell.
I now think perhaps the Muslim husbands sent their women out to vote because they are considered expendable {who cares if they get offed right? They are just girls.}

Hope I'm wrong.

Not a chance. I don't have a sense that Iraqis will accept anything like an Iranian Mullocracy, and Sistani may be Iranian, but he's nothing like them. His consistant position has been that the role of religion should be to advise politics, and he's done as much to keep the theocrats at arm's length from the process as he has to insure that common Islamic views and values will be represented.

I think you're spending too much time at Atrios. ;)

As for your concerns paper, the WSJ summed it up pretty good today:

The next Iraqi government will surely make some calls with which the US is going to disagree, especially if it resumes the de-Baathification of the Iraqi Army that is favored by both the Kurds and Shiites. But the whole point of this exercise was to amke Iraq a democracy, not a client-state. As it is, it's difficult to imagine a democratic Iraq being nay more hostile to basic US interests than, say, France.

Yes, say France.