The BBC Website headline, appearing on Jan. 31 as Iraq's provincial elections concluded, read: "Peace and Quiet Mark Iraq Polls."

How praiseworthy, BBC, I muttered -- a restrained headline touting the relative absence of violence.

And a decent job of planning and execution, Iraqi Army, I thought as I scanned the BBC's report. The scan elicited a string of memories. Civilians anywhere are always easy targets -- that's why al-Qaida, Saddam's Baathist holdouts, and the gangs we call the Mahdi Army and "special groups" still target Iraqi civilians. It's why Pakistani terrorists struck Mumbai -- the Indian Army is a hard target, a Mumbai street vendor isn't.

But voters traipsing to the polls offer terrorists particularly easy targets ripe for mass murder, which in turn generates the sensational headlines terrorists seek. Protecting civilians on sidewalks entering and exiting easily accessible locations (i.e., polling places) was one of the biggest problems confronting U.S., coalition and Iraqi forces during 2004 as they prepared for Iraq's historic January 2005 elections.

I know from personal experience -- the plans team I served with in Iraq struggled with this complex problem. The courage of the Iraqi people won that election, as ink-stained fingers became the symbol of democratic will in the face of personal danger.

Electoral peace and quiet in January 2009 told me Iraqi police and military forces conducted an intricate nationwide security operation -- another sign of organizational maturity, improving intelligence and increasing professional confidence.

The election, however, is much more than a significant headline and a solid security operation. The election demonstrates rather dramatically that Iraq's process of political maturation continues. Remember, the first post-Saddam vote took place only four years ago, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government formed in May 2006. In this election, voters punished several sectarian parties, tossing the rascals out because they hadn't performed. In several provinces, Iraqi secular political parties did much better, which is a sharp blow to extremist Shias and their Iranian financiers. Continued...