The Iraqi Election

A BANNER DAY: Seattle residents Mechell Qatrani, left, and her husband, Muhamed, draped their rental van in the flags of Iraq and the United States for the drive to the polling place in Irvine.  (Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times)

A man studies the ballot at a polling station in the largely Sunni Muslim town of Zubayr. Many Sunni Arab Muslims boycotted the vote out of fear or anger.  (Andrew Parsons / AP)

Voters in the city of Amarah, southeast of Baghdad, trek to the polls amid a ban on most vehicles for security reasons. Many Iraqis across the country made the trip on foot.  (James Vellacott / AP)

Election workers empty a ballot box to start tallying votes in Abul Khasib in southern Basra, Iraq.  (Odd Andersen / AFP/Getty Images)

Shiite Muslim election officials in Najaf count ballots at the end of election day. In the holy city, the capital of Iraq’s Shiite Muslim heartland, fears of insurgent violence were dwarfed by a wave of electoral optimism. Voters there referred to the day as an irris, or celebration.  (Ghaith Abdul-Ahad / Getty Images)

MAKING HIS MARK: An Iraqi casts his ballot, his finger offering evidence of his vote.  (Odd Andersen / AFP/ Getty Images)

The president strides to the podium to express his satisfaction with election day in Iraq. The vote may soften the attitudes of some opponents of the U.S. presence there.  (Michael Kleinfeld / EPA)