The best hope for Iraq is in a strong showing by secular parties--particularly Ayad Allawi's Iraq List--who can begin to curb the power of Iranian-backed Shiite Islamists and their militias. As for the Sunni insurgency, it is beginning to look like a spent force, with some Sunni insurgent groups even vowing to protect voting sites against Zarqawi and his foreign terrorists.

The most promising thing about the secular parties is that they are regarded as "patriotic"--that is, as standing for the best interests of Iraq as a whole, not for the narrow agenda of any one ethnic or religious group. In other words, they are parties that stand for universal principles. This morning my cousin sent me some comments on this from his interviews with those voting , which I reproduce below:

"The January election was a clash of ethnicities. The December election is shaping up to be a clash of world-views, of abstract principles. But what principles are at stake? We know what the Islamists stand for: Iran Lite. Other than separation of mosque and state and a unified nation-state, what do the secularists stand for?

"There is a lot of frustration in the country with the ruling Shiite Alliance…. Partly they are frustrated with the incompetence and do-nothing character of the current government…. But the Iraqis…won't vote on the question of competence. They know they are deciding the destiny of their country for the next four years. They are deciding the nature of the New Iraq. The Iraqis are going to vote their premises.

"The results of this election will tell us a lot about their premises--the essential national character of the new Iraq. If the Iraqi List prevails, then we know, at the very least, that the Iraqis are patriots. That they don't want to be Iran. That they do not want their country run by remote control from Teheran. That they do not want their country divided into three semi-autonomous unions. That there is such a thing as an "Iraqi" people who identify with the Iraqi nation-state. That Iraq is a nation and not just a group of ethnicities, pushed together by European civil servants, eager to break up into bickering conclaves.

"But what is the nature of that patriotism, of that Iraqi nationality? If not race or religion, what is it based on? What abstract principles provide the basis of this new nation and its new government? What do Iraqis want from life in Iraq over the next four years?

"This election will tell us a lot about their premises. But a victory for the Iraqi List will not reveal all of them. Having rejected the Iranian model and agreed that they want to remain united despite racial and religious differences, the Iraqis must still decide the goals of their government and the terms of their coexistence.

"They will have to make laws and interpret their constitution. If the secularists win this week, then we'll see over the months and years to come what Iraqi secularism consists of. Are the Iraqi List voters humanist-secularists of the Chalabi/Allawi type, who want a liberal, this-worldly, Western style society? Or are they pietist-secularists of the Sistani type, who want a secular government but an Islamic society?...

"If the good guys win this election, we will watch yet another drama unfold, as we see the Iraqis debate among themselves the nature of the good."