[ccebook.cn]The World in 2010

Middle East and Africa
Iraqis rule Iraq
Nov 13th 2009
Hope laced with danger
OK girls, it's ours now
Reuters
Nearly seven years after the Americans toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq is still groping towards normality. If
2009 was its calmest year since the invasion, 2010 may mark the moment when it can claim to have fully
recovered its independence.
The first big event of the year will be a general election due by the end of January. The second, if Barack
Obama sticks to the timetable he adjusted after winning the presidency, will be the departure of most
American troops by the end of August. By the end of 2010 it should become clearer whether Iraq can stand
on its own feet both politically and militarily. The odds, just, are that it will do so. But it will be a year of
danger and uncertainty as well as hope.
Much will depend on the smooth emergence of a new government and prime minister. Though shenanigans in
late 2009 within the dominant Shia establishment cast doubt on the political survivability of Nuri al-Maliki, who
became prime minister in 2006, he has a chance of keeping his post for the next few years. But he must
decide whether to join an electoral list that embraces most of the main Shia religious parties, which together
won the last general election four years ago, or whether he forges alliances with more secular-minded Shias
and with Sunni Arabs of various stripes, including former Baathists once loyal to Saddam.
As before, the Kurds, though not as solid a block as they were, may hold the balance. Mr Maliki’s relations
with Massoud Barzani, Kurdistan’s regional president, have been periodically poisonous, but it may be in the
interest of both of them to kiss and make up in order to mould a coalition government at the federal centre.
Again as before, a dangerous period of post-election haggling may ensue, perhaps for three or four months,
creating a mood of nervous uncertainty. Government may drift, opening a vacuum that violent groups may
seek to fill. At this point Mr Maliki may be ousted.
In any event, the insurgency will persist, but at a far lower level than in its bloody heyday in 2005 and 2006,
when in some months more than 3,000 civilians were being killed. The monthly average death toll in 2010 is
likely to be less than a tenth of that. But that is still high enough to deter foreign investors and dissuade most
of Iraq’s 2m refugees and 3m internally displaced people from going home.
Several issues, if mishandled, could reignite a bloodier conflict all over again. A bitter
dispute over the ownership of the oil-rich Kirkuk area, which the Kurds now
dominate and insist on keeping, will probably not be solved; the longer the Kurds
hold the upper hand, the harder it will be to dislodge them. Other points along what
is known as the “trigger line” between Kurds and Arabs, especially in the Mosul area
-66-
All American
troops must be
out by the end of
2011