Perhaps four words - resolve, courage, sacrifice and extraordinary - best define the outcome of the elections in Iraq.

The resolve of President Bush and the people of the United States, the courage and sacrifice of primarily the American military and the Iraqi people (as well as the post-Saddam Iraqi leadership), and the extraordinary electoral results.

In the run-up to the election, many among the doubters and naysayers practically cheered for failure. They were all negativism, cynicism and gloom. Remember? From all the predictable sectors - the Old Media (which, somewhere along the way, redefined the terrorists as "insurgents"), Old Europe and even non-Iraqis Osama and Zarqawi the unrelenting cries went up:

Bush is a dunce, interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi a stooge. Postpone the elections. The Sunni Baathists who prospered under Saddam won't vote, the Kurds won't vote, the Shiites won't vote - nobody will vote. Terror is rampant, intimidation high. The Iraqis have no tradition of democracy, no heart for liberty. There will be a bloodbath, a civil war. The outcome will be illegitimate. The election will be "a disaster because it's a result of blunder after blunder after blunder" (Teddy Kennedy).

And: The U.S. lost the war. Elections are unadulterated idiocy. A sham election is not worth the murder, mayhem and horror it will cause. Muslims and Arabs are unsuited for democracy. It's all America's fault: The problem in Iraq is the U.S. generally - U.S. troops in particular. Like Vietnam, Iraq's a quagmire; bring the boys home. Americans don't support the death of Americans fighting for Iraqis who won't defend themselves and don't believe in freedom. . . .

Serial beheader Zarqawi summed it all up in the week before the election. In pamphlets and video threats, he issued a "final warning" to Iraqis, vowed to "wash the streets with the voters' blood" and "declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology."

Remember all that terrorist hate and - from the usual sectors - all that smug racism and elitism?

Recall, please, the October elections in Afghanistan: The cynics were similarly pessimistic, yet the first Afghan elections in 5,000 years were a resounding success. Within months, so were the elections in Ukraine and the Palestinian territories, and so are the elections now in Iraq. The Iraqis were supposed to be giving the U.S. and democracy the midfinger salute. Somehow, the stink-finger of dismissive hostility to the very notion of liberty became the blue ink-finger of proud free expression.

Iraqis turned out in droves. Upward of 8 million walked miles, thronged 6,000 polling stations, stood in line for hours, made their choices - and rejoiced in the streets for longer hours thereafter. Iraqi voter turnout was higher than usual turnout in the U.S. Somehow, pre-election predictions about what would happen on Iraq's election day proved as wrong as Nov. 3 exit polls were regarding what would happen here.

Thirty-five Iraqis died - a measure of Iraqi courage and sacrifice. And in all, 1,500 Americans have died - testimony to their courage and sacrifice equal to that of the millions of millions of Americans who preceded them on behalf of liberty for millions from Germany and France to South Korea and Japan, and of course ultimately for the liberty of nearly 300 million now living in the United States. Continued...