Scenarios for Iraq's future

[RedEarth]

March 8, 2007

Following are a range of views on what Iraq will look like in the coming years.

ADNAN AL-DULAIMI, KEY FIGURE IN IRAQI ACCORDANCE FRONT, MAIN SUNNI POLITICAL BLOC IN PARLIAMENT
'Whoever monitors events feels Iraq will worsen every day. The hope for reform is small because violence is escalating. One of the most important solutions is to create a real balance in government institutions, especially in the Defence and Interior Ministries, and to work on dissolving (Shi'ite) militias. If the government can manage this, Iraq's problems would be solved.

If the current security plan succeeds Iraq will move in the right direction. If it fails, Iraq is doomed to even worse.'

TOBY DODGE, IRAQ EXPERT, QUEEN MARY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
'Iraq is basically a failed state ... with a huge security vacuum that militias and criminals and the insurgency have stepped into. I see no evidence the security vacuum is going to be filled by anyone else but the militias. So I think that for the next six to seven years the civil war is going to get much worse as U.S. public patience declines and disappears. My best bet is that the next U.S. president, somewhere toward the end of his first term, will pull U.S. troops out or draw them down basically to focus on the Green Zone (government compound) and Camp Victory (the main U.S. military base in Baghdad).

I think the civil war will be contained within Iraq ... (But) through proxies, Iraq will become the frontline in a regional power struggle.'

AYAD JAMAL-EDDINE, SECULAR SHI'ITE CLERIC AND LEGISLATOR.
'Not all scenarios are bad. We are living in a Saddam-free era and that is in itself a good thing. The amount of freedom available is huge and that has turned this era into chaos. We are witnessing a new Iraq that is under construction. There is no doubt the country is on the edge of civil war. It is on the edge of sectarian and ethnic division. Unfortunately, the laws introduced in these four years are reinforcing this problem.'

JOOST HILTERMANN, IRAQ EXPERT, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP
'The most likely scenario is a failed state, with a moderately stable Kurdish region for some time and chaos in the rest of Iraq, where various parties, groups and criminal gangs will battle each other over turf, power and resources. This could play itself out in two ways: One, the civil wars raging throughout Arab Iraq will be contained through U.S. redeployment to the borders and a U.S. effort to set up a regional security framework that will help neighbouring states from falling to the urge to intervene; and two, the civil wars will spill over into neighbouring states, and the misfortunes of some groups will prompt intervention by their patrons, thus triggering a regional war between principal players such as Iran and Saudi Arabia.'

ADNAN AL-UBEYDI, IRAQI RESEARCHER
'I think in four years time there will still be a lot of violence. It may even get worse. I'm generally pessimistic about the future ... I don't think Iraq can return to centralisation. I don't see the southern (Shi'ite) provinces retreating from their right to a federal region and losing out after all the sacrifices and violence they have suffered (under Saddam Hussein, a Sunni).

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20070308-0303-iraq-war-scenarios.html