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He recited the attacks in their area: two bombs, including one at a culinary school; a mortar attack on a building; an attack on a hospital; and rockets fired from a nearby bridge.

More explosions and gunfire were heard in the distance. The soldiers, many of whom had not faced combat, joked about being killed, the sort of black humor that prevails in combat.

?But theres nothing significant enough for us to go out yet, said Lieutenant Alexander, who is with theFirst Brigade,Third Infantry Division.

So the soldiers sat, waiting for a request from the Iraqis. They smoked. They ate. They talked about women and movies. After three hours, most of the soldiers were permitted to head back to their barracks to get out of the sun and get some rest, though the platoon remained on alert.

?It makes sense guys, this is their election, the lieutenant said of the Iraqis. ?Its good theyre trying to handle this on their own.

Americas war here may be seven years old, but for many of thesoldiers stationed at Baghdads old Ministry of Defense, it is their first time in Iraq. With Sundays pivotal parliamentary elections, Americas role here may be its smallest yet. Unseasoned as many of the soldiers here are, they seemed to have an understanding that the success? or not? of the elections could dictate how soon the Americans could go home.

Still, it is not the war that they imagined when they joined the Army.

?Our gunner swears weve been shot at, but we cant prove it, said Lt. Bud Brown, who arrived here, like the others, in December.

?Obviously, I joined the Army to become a tanker, to drive my tank into battle, but as you can see there are no tanks here. But this is the mission.

Late on Friday night, a group of soldiers stood around a fire in a trash barrel at the guard station, at the rear of their barracks, smoking and discussing why they were in Iraq. They joined up to fight?and are aware that todays Iraq may not give them that opportunity.

?Whats your job in the infantry? said Specialist Aaron Mlynarchek, 22, from Grand Rapids, Mich. ?The infantrymans job is to respond to the fight first and eliminate the threat on the ground.

On Saturday, a group of soldiers did hit the streets of Baghdad. With an Iraqi Humvee leading several American vehicles, the convoy visited seven polling sites with Block, a 4-year-old German shepherd, to sniff out bombs. But in most cases, the dog was allowed only to inspect the outside of buildings.

?You know, in Arab culture the dog is unclean, so they dont want them inside, said Capt. Kelvin N. Robinson, walking around the yard outside a school.

Block did not find any bombs on Saturday.

But, as the convoy drove from one polling site to another, the radio crackled, ?We have information that there are two Vbieds in the sector that is supposed to hit polling sites close to where you are going. (A Vbied is the acronym for vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.)

The convoy waited on the side of a busy street. The report was that men had been seen loading 15 cylindrical shapes from a gray vehicle into the trunk of a 2008 yellow Peugeot.

?Its within a kilometer, which is pretty damn close, said Captain Robinson, between radio communications with an Apache helicopter that was searching for the vehicle. ?If that goes boom, that wont be pretty.

Scanning the traffic from his drivers seat, Pfc. Preston A. Pearson said it seemed as if every other vehicle was a yellow Peugeot.

After about 20 minutes, with the intelligence passed on to the Iraqi forces, the convoy moved to the next polling site. A car bomb was never found.

American forces did most of their work for the election out of sight. Iraqi military leaders prefer it that way; even when a single American officer accompanies an Iraqi general in a convoy, he will sometimes change into a uniform that resembles those worn by the Iraqi Army. Conversely, some rank-and-file Iraqi soldiers are so enamored with the gear and the sophistication of the American military that they will wear United States Army patches on their uniforms, as some seen at polling sites Saturday did.

Lt. Col. Jeffrey C. Denius, of the First Brigade, Third Infantry Division, said American forces in his section of northeast Baghdad provided more than 1,000 blast barriers, several thousand yards of concertina wire, plywood and sandbags, and during the election provided aircraft surveillance.

American forces also trained female volunteers from Iraqs Interior Ministry to frisk womenvoting at polling sites.

And on election day, a unit was dispatched, after a request from the Iraqis, to guard a warehouse in central Baghdad that was the main repository for the ballots.

For the Americans here, there is a sense that the legacy of Americas war in Iraq hinges substantially on the success of these elections.

?Literally, as we sit here now, if the elections go well, our mission is complete, said ColonelDenius.

?People come in with iPhones, and it might have seemed strange at first, but now were used to it, Mr. Catlett said. ?Ive seen pictures of our food and of the waiters on the Internet and on Facebook.

As he and other restaurateurs have found, the era of food bloggers ? who routinely photograph a restaurants entrees, staff and décor ? is upon us. And they seem to be especially active in New Jersey.

?Ive been in the restaurant business my whole life in New York City, and in New York City restaurant bloggers dont exist on the level they do in New Jersey, said Michael Liristis, 34, the former manager and sommelier at Thalassa Restaurant in TriBeCa and at Kellari Taverna in Midtown. He is now a partner in and general manager of Nisi Estiatorio in Englewood, which opened in January 2009.

?Here, bloggers are extremely well versed in the industry, Mr. Liristis said. ?Theyre very well educated.

They are also plentiful.

?Blogging is huge here. It really is, said Mr. Catlett, 44, who not only reads blog posts about his restaurant, which opened in September, but also sometimes offers reparations, in the form of gift certificates, when he sees entries about less-than-satisfactory meals.

Food and restaurant blogs based in New Jersey run the gamut from the professional, like the popular Table Hopping With Rosie blog at njmonthly.com and Second Helpings, an offshoot of the newspaper The Record of Bergen County,to the admittedly experimental.

?We just wanted to make a Web site that was fun and young and geared toward people like us, who love food, said Alexandra Harcharek, 21, of Princeton, co-founder of A Food Coma with Brandon Werner, 25, of Dumont.The site, begun in 2008, specializes in recipes and restaurant reviews for area college studentson a budget; Ms. Harcharek is a journalism studentat Rowan University in Glassboro.

?What surprised me is how many people are reading. Its actually a bit freaky, Ms. Harcharek said. ?I love the feedback, the responses. And I also like the fact that something seems to be going on here, and Im a part of it.

One of the early New Jersey food bloggers was Jason Perlow, 40, of Tenafly, who has also written articles on food for The New York Times. Mr. Perlow started his Off the Broiler blog in 2006 after being a co-founder of the food forum eGullet in 2001. (EGullet is now a not-for-profit site run by Mr. Perlows former business partner, Steven A. Shaw.)

He wanted to blog ?in a more detailed way, Mr. Perlow said, adding, ?I wanted to be able to duplicate my dining experience for the reader, with a lot of photography.

Mr. Perlow, who works full time in systems technology, does not consider himself a professional food critic. Neither does Mark Jahnke, 35, of Bordentown, who started the local wine and food blog F. Scott and Zelda with his wife, Pam Wardle, 31, in 2007. Mr. Jahnke is in the Air Force, and Ms. Wardle works in international business development.

?A lot of our friends are foodies, and we just wanted to let people know what we had tried over the weekend and whether it was good, Mr. Jahnke said.

Even so, Mr. Jahnke and bloggers like Deborah Smithof Point Pleasant, the owner and editor of Jersey Bites, frequently hear from restaurant owners or their publicists.

?I get a lot of invitations from restaurants that have P.R. agencies, said Ms. Smith, 44, who is also president of the company Parents With Nannies.

Ms. Smiths blogcontains reviews, recipes and food-related interviews; she is in the process of taking it hyperlocal by bringing in partners, so that those who log on in distant counties like Hunterdon and Mercer can get food news from their areas.

Dining bloggers acknowledge that their reviews may be tarnished by a perception that they are not above writing a four-star review in return for a free meal. But that perception often is wrong, they say.

?I dont want people to think, ?Oh, theres another blogger whos getting freebies,  said Lisa Howard-Fusco, 39, of Forked River, who runs the blog John and Lisa Are Eating in South Jersey with her husband, John Howard-Fusco, 40. It was established in 2008 as a way of ?letting the world know that there is a food scene in this area, she said.

?We wont take comped meals, because I want to be honest about what Im writing, Ms. Howard-Fusco said. She is a freelance writer; her husband was recently laid off from his job as a financial planner.

Many bloggers ? including all those contacted for this article ? say they have similar standards. Which does not mean that they will casually pan a restaurant for neglecting to refill a water glass, or for running out of the osso buco special.

?Im not out there to bash a restaurant. Usually Im trying to promote it, said Robin Shreeves, 42, a freelance writer who runs the blog South Jersey Locavore from her home in Barrington. ?I want to help people find the kind of food Im looking for myself.

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Sounding Boards

Some blogs about the New Jersey food and restaurant scene:

A Food Coma: afoodcoma.com

F. Scott & Zelda: jerseyfoodies.blogspot.com/2010/01/princeton-present-day-club-f-scott-and.html

Jersey Bites: jerseybites.com

John and Lisa Are Eating in South Jersey: johnandlisaareeatinginsj.blogspot.com

Off the Broiler: offthebroiler.wordpress.com

South Jersey Locavore: southjerseylocavore.com

?Its true we have freedom, Mr. Sharaa said, ?but what do we have beyond it?

?Wheres the law, wheres the state, wheres the sense of citizenship?

Mr. Sharaas question resonates as Iraq heads toward elections on Sunday, perhaps its most decisive moment since Mr. Husseins statue was toppled in Firdos Square in 2003. Under American charge, an indisputable political culture has risen along the banks of the Tigris River, unparalleled in the rest of the Arab world.

But elections often exacerbate rather than bridge divisions. And as the United States military withdraws this year, Iraqis have begun to ask whether their state ? divided, feeble and corrupt ? can navigate the votes results in a country still plagued by the miseries of war, the legacy of Mr. Husseins rule and a calculus that celebrates the victors claiming the spoils of the vanquished.

In that, the elections may be a cautionary lesson, as politicians struggle to cobble together a coalition to rule. Iraqs politics are more vibrant than the institutions meant to gird them, threatening the support of the people they have enfranchised and a nascent, if flawed democratic experiment that has yet to take root.

?We have failed to build a state of institutions, of law and order, said Wael Abdel-Latif, a lawmaker and opposition candidate. ?Our institutions are based on ideological, sectarian and ethnic foundations. They are dangerous, they are shaky and they could collapse at any moment, especially if it takes a long time to form a new government.

Since that day in Firdos Square, Iraq has often served as a contest of competing narratives. Elections, with their visuals of ink-stained fingers, have emerged as a centerpiece. But their legacy has proved more equivocal. One vote helped unleash a civil war; another approved a Constitution deemed flawed by nearly everyone. In the prelude to this vote, politicians have recklessly deployed the state ? the law, courts and military ? to settle scores and further their sometimes demagogic ambitions.

Rarely will anyone defend what has been built. Even Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki calls the system unworkable, though he blames his opponents for making it so.

For many, the problem rests in the very notion of how to organize those fledgling institutions in a country ruled by a succession of kings, strongmen, dictatorial parties and, finally, the Americans. To hold the state together, the government operates by consensus in a country that lacks one, forcing politicians to postpone decisions into an uncertain future on the most pressing issues ? from a national census to disputed territories.

?Iraq has proven under U.S. tutelage that it can organize elections and develop this political culture, and that is encouraging, said Joost Hilterman of the International Crisis Group. ?But Ive still seen no evidence that any government can govern.

Abdullah Jabbar thought about that judgment as he sat at his clothing store in Kahramana Square, festooned with posters for some of the nearly 6,200 candidates vying for Parliaments 325 seats. Like many these days, he expressed a mix of optimistic pride and savvy cynicism at a campaign that has flourished in the past month. No one can avoid it, he said, neither the text messages on cellphones nor the candidates debates on television.

?Its like a soccer match and this is the roar of the crowd, he said.

Iraqs sectarianism still shapes the election. A Sunni vice president appeals to ?our people, and Shiite candidates speak of guarding ?our rights. Three judges in Mr. Husseins trial are candidates, one boasting he ?carried out the judgment of God and the people. But the most chauvinistic language is often tempered by ambiguity, a far cry from the last election in 2005, and in Kahramana and elsewhere, politics have matured.