Moment of Truth

The voting that begins in a few hours in Iraq may prove to be the most important election of George Bush's career. If it changes the trajectory of the Iraqi "peace process", then history may look on him as a great foreign policy president, a new Teddy Roosevelt. Otherwise, if Iraq devolves into Lebanonesque internecine warfare, Bush could be regarded by history approximately the same as he is now regarded by Democrats. To wit, poorly.

InstantReplay urges Christian readers to pray for peaceful elections for the next 24 hours or so. We do so not for George Bush's sake, but for that of the Iraqi people and those who are committed to helping them with aid and with the gospel of peace.

Update: It's never too late to ditch a bad idea. Staining voters' fingers with blue ink may be a great symbol in Australia, but it's asking for disaster in the Sunni triangle, if not elsewhere in Iraq. How better to keep people home on polling day than to give them a difficult-to-remove indicator that shows they voted. Why don't we just paint targets on their backs that say "terrorists aim here"? It strikes me that minor voting fraud is going to be a smaller problem in this election than the murder of voters. It's not too late to stop it, though: put the ink back in storage, and get the word out that you can vote without marking yourself as a target.