Democracy has no inherent value.

Jonah Goldberg has previously written at some length that elections, even democratic and unrigged elections (unlike Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Palestinian Authority), are not inherently good civic events ("Elections aren't any more inherently moral or useful than a hammer. I can use a hammer to build a house or to smack you in the forehead [which could also be moral if you're doing something very bad to provoke me].").

I agree that there is no "good" that inheres in or is a by-product of a free election just because a country holds that election. Instead, the most visible act of democratic exercise can be a tool for great evil. The proof: (1) in 1946, Czechoslovakia elected a Communist government by plurality; that government proceeded to Stalinize the country; Hungary had a similar situation, but with more direct Soviet interference; (2) in 1933, Hitler won a plurality in the German general election, the aftereffects are self-explanatory; (3) Turkey voted, by plurality, for an Islamist government but it was a "demonstration" by the Turkish military that reinforced that country's secular tradition and preserved its democracy.

The point? The June 30 deadline for handing over Iraq to its provisional government and holding elections is an artificial construct. First, build rule of law, property rights, contract rights and democratic institutions that will withstand anti-democratic challenges, then worry about elections.