[sweetjazz]

I think that the Shiite government would have an incentive not to split the country because the Kurds control so much wealth and the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. So the Shiites would likely fight for Kirkuk before just ceding it over to the Kurds. Kurds, on the other hand, are likely going to move to secede at some point. And that might not be a bad thing. It's almost likely destined to succeed as an independent state, and the rest of Iraq is probably slightly more likely to remain unified once Kurdistan is formed than it is now.

The Sunnis, on the other hand, are likely to be disappointed by the election process. They will likely have little effective power in the central government. The big question mark is where the Sunnis who don't like how things turn out but don't like the violence of the insurgents will turn. This will largely be determined by how much Shiites reach out to Sunnis and try to accomodate some of their requests and how much Sunnis are willing to concede. But civil war is a real possibility; the insurgency could easily grow substantially and incorporate so many Sunnis that is in fact a civil war. Whether the Sunnis would then find for control of the predominantly Sunni provinces or all of Iraq (possibly minus the Kurdish provinces) is another question mark.

As far as asking the American troops to withdraw, that seems unlikely, but it is probably they will ask us to lower our troop levels. This won't really be problematic as the Pentagon is planning on lowering troop levels provided everything goes smoothly anyway. This could actually lead to unity in Iraq if they feel like their is a notable decline in the presence of American troops -- while at the same time having enough American military personnel there to maintain security and continue training Iraqi security forces. Unfortunately, the Iraqi public may now expect a quicker timetable for our withdrawl than might be in our (and very possibly their) best interest.

Basically, as you predict the results, our influence in the Iraqi government will decrease significantly. Probably the Iraqi government will continue to work with us to some degree behind the scences, but it will be important for them to exert their independence in some symbolic moves.

I don't know if this really answers your questions, but I think you bring up some great things to think about. This is all I can add at the moment, but hopefully others can add more about what's going on in Iraq from reliable sources and offer some ideas as to what that means for American strategy.