Representatives from the United Nations, for a change, have bet their reputations on the success of January elections in Iraq:

Preparations for the crucial January election are "on track" and the absence of international observers due to the country's tenuous security should not detract from the vote's credibility, the top U.N. electoral expert here said.

Terrorists should take this as a major defeat; after all, if you can't frighten the United Nations, who's left? (Hat tip to IP.) Meanwhile, Mohammed Fadhil reports a nearly unanimous pledge of support from Iraq's religious groups, from the influential to the batty to the subversive:

The elections fever is obviously rising up in Iraq and the belief in the necessity of the elections for the future of Iraq and in the importance of participating in this process is entering the hearts and minds of more Iraqis day by day as the time for elections is getting nearer.

...[T]he majority of political and religious trends in Iraq share the conviction that elections are a must and this is good sign for the future of this country and will erase many of the doubts about the prospects of the elections. We can't let a small group that's still living the illusions of the past influence our strategies; the terrorists and their allies thought that they can stop the wild tides of freedom but day by day they're getting more isolated and I can feel that they are beginning to realize that their end is approaching.

They had missed the train and their call for negotiations strongly indicates that they're feeling defeated because this is a characteristic feature of the Ba'athists; they never sit down for negotiations until they know they're losing and until it's too late.

As recently illustrated, no volume of gruesome murders seems capable of intimidating Iraqis.

Meanwhile, Hamed Karzai has won a majority of votes cast in Afghanistan's historic free election, with only a panel decision on the opposition candidates' rather silly accusations of election fraud left before Karzai is named President of Afghanistan.

Only one American presidential candidate is campaigning with his party for the celebration and defense of these victories against tyranny, and he's not from Massachusetts.