Iraq

The demise of Iraq’s Al-Iraqiya Alliance, at threat of marginalisation, would remove the country’s sole credible political representative of a very important community: the secular, non-sectarian middle class.

To overcome Iraq’s current political crisis and prevent the breakdown of the entire post-2003 order, Prime Minister Maliki and his opponents both will have to agree to painful compromises.

The political standoff between Iraq’s Kurds and the government in Baghdad has left pressing disputes over oil and territories unresolved, intensifying the likelihood of conflict.

Spreading corruption threatens to undermine the significant progress Iraq has made toward reducing violence and strengthening state institutions.

The main threat to Iraq’s political order today emanates not from an organised insurgency but from within the political system itself.

As a rule, Iraq’s post-Saddam elections have tended to magnify pre-existing negative trends.

Violence in much of Iraq is at lower levels than in years past but, in Ninewa, the carnage continues.

As sectarian violence in Iraq has ebbed over the past year, a new and potentially just as destructive political conflict has arisen between the federal government and the Kurdistan regional government in Erbil.

On 31 January, Iraqis will head to the polls in fourteen of eighteen governorates to elect new provincial councils.