For four long years, life has been brutally unkind to most Iraqis, but Friday night they had one of those rare moments to focus beyond the daily violence that is swallowing their lives. One of their own took first prize in the Arab version of American Idol. In Baghdad, a city that becomes deserted and plunges into darkness after nightfall, residents who had electricity to watch televisions celebrated with gunfire that briefly pierced the quiet just before midnight. Wearing a turquoise evening dress, Shadha Hassoun, wrapped herself with the white, red and black flag of Iraq and broke into tears...