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Elections Put Postwar Iraq at Pivotal Political Moment

05 March 2010 00:16 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. With the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq coming later this year, Sunday’s parliamentary elections there take on added importance, APA reports citing www.voanews.com website.

Despite some new bombings and continuing sectarian divisions, hopes are high that Iraq can stage an election that is clean and relatively peaceful. But will political factions, most of which are organized along sectarian or ethnic lines, come together to consolidate their fledgling democracy? Or will the country slide back into old habits of feuding and violence?

Former National Security Council Iraq director Charles Dunne says Iraqi voters are starting to look beyond just their identity as Shia, Sunni or Kurd in making their political decisions.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite who has been trying to position himself as a non-sectarian nationalist candidate, endorsed the move, which Sunnis saw as a blatant power play by Shiites. But Sunnis are not planning to boycott these elections, as they did in 2005.

U.S. combat forces are scheduled to be pulled out of Iraq by the end of August. If political negotiations drag on, they would bump up against that timetable. But the Obama administration is adamant that, barring some calamity, the withdrawal will proceed as planned.

Kamran Bokhari says with political headaches at home on health care, and foreign policy dilemmas like Iran and Afghanistan, the Obama administration has a lot riding on success in Iraq.

"From the point of view of the Obama administration sticking to that timetable is very important. He needs to be able to say that, ’Look, I promised I would pull out of Iraq. We have pulled out of Iraq or we are making progress towards that.’ Everything depends on this election and the formation of the government," said Bokhari.

Analysts say the United States does not have the political clout in Iraq that it once had, and what it does have should be used with a gentle and deft hand.