Anybody who wants to postpone Iraq's elections should have been in Najaf, the Shia Muslim stronghold, in August and September. The battle there lasted three times as long as the recent fight in Fallujah and ended in stalemate. Even with Najaf now quiet, a stroll through Sadr City - the other epicentre for Iraq's majority Shia population - is sobering enough.

Shia rage in Iraq is frightening. It is not the nasty violence of a deposed minority - the car bombs and backstreet massacres, the assassinated doctors and fleetingly occupied police stations. It is much bigger: the seismic, street-swelling anger of a large and impatient majority.