Sunnis defy violence, cast vote into the unknown

An explosion boomed every few minutes on the morning of Iraq’s national election. We decided to spend the day in a pivotal and harrowing spot in Iraq’s modern landscape: Adhamiya, the neighborhood that was the center of Baghdad’s Sunni ethnic cleansing and civil war, and the last place Saddam Hussein appeared publicly as a free man.

This election marks a pivot point in Iraqi politics, especially for Sunnis. Their boycott of the last parliamentary election opened the door to violent means of a…