What next after Iraq’s elections?

Millions of Iraqis went to polling stations on Sunday to vote in the nation’s parliamentary elections. Sporadic violence was responsible for the deaths of at least 38 people, but early reports indicate the election was largely viewed as a success by the international community. President Obama called the vote a “milestone” on Sunday, but analysts and observers wonder if the election will trigger sectarian violence as it did following Iraq’s 2005 elections.

New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid joins us from Baghdad where he was covering the election. And Phebe Marr, a Middle East scholar and historian and author of “The Modern History of Iraq,” notes that Sunday’s election was just one small step in a series of small steps that will bring greater security to Iraq – but says that it is the first election in the Middle East in fifty years that was not decided before voting took place.