Of all the pictures I saw from the Iraqi elections last weekend, my favorite was on nytimes.com: an Iraqi expatriate mother, voting in Michigan, holding up her son to let him stuff her ballot into the box. I loved that picture. Being able to freely cast a ballot for the candidate of your choice is still unusual for Iraqis and for that entire region. That mother seemed to be saying: When I was a child, I never got to vote. I want to live in a world where my child will always be able to.

God bless her. This was a very good day for Iraq.

To say that mere voting or an election or two makes Iraq a success story would obviously be mistaken. An election does not a democracy make  and Iraq’s politicians still have yet to prove that they are up to governing, nation-building and both establishing and abiding by the rule of law. But this election is a big deal because Iraqis  with the help of the U.N., the U.S. military and the Obama team, particularly Vice President Joe Biden  overcame two huge obstacles.

They overcame an array of sectarian disputes that repeatedly threatened to derail this election. And they came out to vote  Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds  despite the bombs set off by Al Qaeda and the dead-end Baathists who desperately want to keep the democracy project in Iraq from succeeding. This latter point is particularly crucial. The only way Al Qaeda, Baathism and violent Islamism will truly be defeated is when Arabs and Muslims themselves  not us  show they are willing to fight and die for a more democratic, tolerant and progressive future. Al Qaeda desperately wanted the U.S. project in Iraq to fail, but the Iraqi people just keep on keeping it alive.

And how about you, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran? How are you feeling today? Yes, I am sure you have your proxies in Iraq. But I am also sure you know what some of your people are quietly saying: “How come we Iranian-Persian-Shiites  who always viewed ourselves as superior to Iraqi-Arab-Shiites  can only vote for a handful of pre-chewed, pre-digested, ‘approved’ candidates from the supreme leader, while those lowly Iraqi Shiites, who have been hanging around with America for seven years, get to vote for whomever they want?” Unlike in Tehran, Iraqis actually count the votes. This will subtly fuel the discontent in Iran.