Iraqi election results and a hypothetical question

[sam h]

We will not have results of these elections for some time. However, I have read several pieces around the internet that suggest the general contours of some likely outcomes that might be of interest:

1) The United Iraqi Alliance (religious Shiites) will have the largest bloc by far, but whether they will have a majority will be very close.

2) The list of Ayad Allawi, who some US officials had hoped might emerge as a potential prime minister candidate, is not likely to do well. Neither is Ahmad Chalabi's list. So the two most pro-US lists (other than the Kurds) seem to be doing poorly.

3) The Sunnis are voting for Sunni lists (as opposed to the secular pan-denominational lists of Chalabi and Allawi), but the split between a prominent Sunni secular list and a prominent Sunni fundamentalist list that is seen as the de facto political wing of the insurgency is unclear.

So Iraq will probably have four years of rule by religious Shiites, but whether they will need coalitional partners to form a government is unclear. The guy being talked about most for Prime Minister is the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution's Adel Abdul Mahdi, who is an economist.

Now for my question:

What should the US do if the new government asks for a withdrawal or starts taking steps towards a formal or de facto partition of the country?

[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.

[bobman0330]

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What should the US do if the new government asks for a withdrawal or starts taking steps towards a formal or de facto partition of the country?

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If they want us to leave, we should leave. If they want to chop up their country and do so in accordance with the constitution, we should let them.

[Beer and Pizza]

There was an election?


I think you are wrong, if there were an election there would have been a thread in this forum about the election. Stop making things up.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
There was an election?


I think you are wrong, if there were an election there would have been a thread in this forum about the election. Stop making things up.

[/ QUOTE ]
My sleep-addled brain can't tell if this is sarcasm or not... [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[lehighguy]

We should have troops out within 1-2 years. A minimum of half gone within the year.

[sam h]

They now have preliminary results from 11 of the 16 provinces, making up about two thirds of congressional seats. Allawi is indeed getting trounced, winning only 14% in Baghdad province, where he is strongest by far. Chalabi did even worse, winning only 1% in Baghdad. Some news sources suggest that while the count in the majority Sunni provinces isn't done yet, the Sunni religious parties are doing much better elsewhere than Sunni secular parties.

So it looks like:

(a) Big win for religious parties in general. Leaving aside the Kurds for the moment, secular groups may only win something like 10-15 percent of the seats. Probably zero chance for the secular coalition of secular Shiites, secular Sunnis, and the Kurds that the Bush administration was reportedly hoping for.

(b) Perceived proximity to the US looks like an electoral curse, as both Allawi and Chalabi got hammered.

(c) Not exactly clear what the Sunni results are, but there are indications that they are voting heavily for religious parties. I don't really understand the various Sunni political factions very well, but at least one of the most prominent religious parties was reported before the election to be closely connected to the insurgency and to have blanketed Sunni areas with posters featuring dead insurgents labeled as martyrs.

(d) It's still unclear whether the Shiite religious parties will win a majority and be able to form a government on their own. It's also unclear what the breakdown of power within the Shiite religious coalition looks like, especially between the Muqtada al-Sadr faction and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution. The leaders reportedly hate each other, some bad blood that goes way back.


To come back to the question of what we do if the government asks us to pull out: I'm not saying this will happen but it seems possible. Its easy to fall into the assumption that the government wouldn't want us to leave because it would risk destabilizing the country. On the other hand, let's take a look at the main players emerging. Muqtada al-Sadr's strength within the Shiite coalition is uncertain, but he is likely one of the two biggest players and he has made no bones about wanting us gone from day one. If the Sunnis are indeed voting heavily for religious parties, and those religous parties either have ties to the insurgency or represent many insurgent-friendly areas, then they may want us out too. What the other Shiites groups want is totally uncertain. But they certainly aren't secular pro-western types, and at some point they may decide that they have certain plans for the Kurds and Sunnis that we are only going to obstruct, giving them some incentive to also tell us to scram.

This is all speculation, but I don't think its unreasonable. This year is going to be a serious test and I'm not sure anybody really knows what's going to happen.

[lehighguy]

Didn't the US and Chabali have a falling out. I thought we hate him now?

[sam h]

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Didn't the US and Chabali have a falling out. I thought we hate him now?

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There was a big falling out highlighted by allegations that he was in the employ of the Iranian secret service. But apparently there was a subsequent reconciliation because I read several things in the last six months talking about how he was back in the good graces of the administration or people at the defense department. He had a cabinet position in the government this past year that probably brought him into contact with American officials a lot.

[ACPlayer]

Perhaps not quite on point but an interesting read anyway.

Iran cheers Iraq victory

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"We knew ever since the beginning [of the Iraq war] that the Americans would become trapped in a quagmire ... Iraq has become a turning point in the history of the Middle East. If the Americans had succeeded in subjugating Iraq, our region would have suffered once again from colonialism, but if Iraq becomes a democratic country that can stand on its own feet, the Americans will face the greatest loss. In such an eventuality, Iran and other regional states will be able to play an important role in world issues since they provide a huge share of the world's energy needs. We see now that the United States has been defeated."

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