Eternal optimist Mohammed brings us news that things might be working out after all:

As a matter of fact, it has to be acknowledged that the political experiment in Iraq has matured by far during these two and a half years and the political language slowly began to take more realistic dimensions and we can sense a growing faith in the ways of democracy giving some sort of special divinity to the ballot box which shall remain the only base for building a new Iraq. The more Iraqis believe in elections and in voting as a way to express themselves, the weaker violence becomes and the more isolated the terrorists will be. Iraqis will prove that they do believe in democracy and they do want liberty and justice and the will show the region an example of how partners can work out their differences in spite of all the hardships.

Of course, just prior to this he wrote how he hopes Iraqi politicians will rise to their responsibility and become examples of fair competition, so it's quite possible this is the optimism of naivete instead of progress.

Then again, our own founding fathers professed this precise sort of optimism in their own writings, oftentimes with nearly the same choice of words. They could've been called just as naive (and quite a bit more patronizing), but it seems to have worked out so far.