The trouble with elections is that the wrong people sometimes win. The old adage that democracy is the least offensive form of government is being proven accurate in connection with Iraq. It is still unclear what the precise composition of the Iraqi government will be. We are currently in a sustained period of jockeying, maneuvering, threatening, and cajoling by all of the key players in an effort to gain an advantage.

On the other hand, one conclusion seems inescapably clear at this point in the process. The party which will have the most power in the new Iraqi government will be the religious Shiites, some of whom have expressed a determination to impose their fundamentalist agenda upon the entire country or perhaps to have an autonomous southern region which they can control unilaterally. This result may have been inevitable because the Shiites are approximately sixty percent of the population.

Before the election, optimists in Washington pursued the hope that even if the Shiites prevailed as expected a secular party would control the government. Indeed, the Iraqi politician Ayad Allawi formed a secular party that hoped to appeal a broad number of Iraqis. But those hopes were dashed when Allawi received less than twenty percent of the vote in Shiite areas, including portions of Baghdad where he was expected to do well.

The question is what happens next? In an effort to preclude religious Shiite groups from seizing control of the government, Allawi has been meeting with Sunni Arab representatives in an effort to form a coalition. The objective is worthwhile. The difficulty is that the Sunnis, comprising only twenty percent of the population simply do not have the votes, even if they combine with Allawi's secular coalition, which includes Shiites seeking an alternative to control by the fundamentalists. This fact won't be accepted easily by the Sunnis who having ruled Iraq for so long under Saddam Hussein and are in denial about their political impotence.

As the votes line up now, it appears that the Shiites committed to a theocracy will be in a position of control eventually. There are those, again the optimists, who believe that the ruling Shiites will seek to move toward the center and form a broad based government and include the Sunnis in a meaningful way.

As I studied the results of the Iraqi election, two other elections kept coming to mind. The first is the German elections during the 1930s when Hitler was voted into power. Let's not forget that unlike Lenin and Mao, Hitler did not seize power in Germany by force. The German people elected him.

The second, and even more troubling example is the series of elections in Iran since the Shah was deposed. In the very first election, after Khomeini's return to Iran, Khomeini's party won a huge victory. In subsequent elections, the ruling fundamentalists carefully controlled all of the names on the ballot. But they didn't in that first election. Khomeini and his followers were voted into office in a ground swell of public support. Many Iranians later came to rue the day that they were responsible for handing over control of their country to the fundamentalist thugs who stripped away their freedoms.

The ruling forces in Iran are thrilled with the results of the Iraq election. On the other hand, the Iranians are not Arabs. They are Persians, and there is still enormous animosity between Iraqis and Iranians as a result of the long war fought under Saddam Hussein. Most of the dying was done by Shiites conscripted on both sides. There is a chance that the Iraqi Shiite leaders will prefer to keep their country intact even if it means working with the Sunnis in a secular democracy rather than being beholden to the mullahs in Tehran.

In one respect, the Iraqi elections, with a huge voter turnout, were a success for the Bush administration. However, the troublesome question facing decision makers in Washington is how to use the leverage we still have with our troops in the country to move Iraq in the direction of a secular democracy. The insurgency and Sunni demands that we leave are not making our task any easier. However, Washington must try to walk that tightrope. A respectable outcome for Iraq is still possible.