New Iraq is not going to be 'democratic, unified country'

The violence has forced at least 1.5 million Iraqis to flee their homeland, with hundreds of new passports being issued daily to those who can afford a plane ticket or taxi ride out of the country, the Migration Ministry said. The ministry said 300,000 people have left their homes for elsewhere in Iraq.

The Shiite Majority in parliament, over complaints of dirty tricks from rival Sunni lawmakers and even some Shiite legislators, adopted a measure that would allow the effective partition of the country after an 18-month waiting period ? something widely opposed in polls of Iraqis.
"The starting point is to recognize that Iraq is not going to be a democratic, unified country that serves as a model for the region.

The violence and the Sunni-Shiite division have already ruled that out," Dennis Ross, a Mideast peace negotiator and policy-maker for former Presidents Clinton and Bush, wrote in a Sunday opinion column for the Washington Post.

Room for more upheaval

A partition would leave Iraq with a weak central government and largely independent states run by Kurds in the north, Shiites in the south and Sunnis in the center and west ? impetus for still more violence and population upheaval.

The Iraqi government announced that next Saturday's much-anticipated national reconciliation conference was indefinitely postponed for unspecified "emergency reasons."
A week before the planned opening of the conference, Iraq's deeply divided politicians had not managed even to agree on a venue for the meeting.
Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in power for just more than four months, took office at the head of what was termed a national unity government.

Within days he had presented a 24-point plan for national reconciliation. The inability to meet on that topic speaks to the failure of both his government and opposition politicians.
The postponement was announced on the first anniversary of the successful national referendum, which adopted the country's first post-Saddam constitution.

The constitution was hailed at the time as a harbinger of a peaceful and democratic Iraq.

More U.S.

troops needed

The capital, where sectarian violence and roving death squads have caused traffic jams to vanish, and commerce and society to head toward a standstill, felt like a stick of dynamite with a lighted fuse Sunday. American analysts such as Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Ross have said this week that 15,000 to 20,000 additional U.S.

troops were needed to give the Americans an even shot at leaving behind a peaceful Iraq.
Then, they say, major policy changes are necessary.
Ross said the best solution was the formation of a federal state with Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds running areas where they are majorities.

A majority of Shiite politicians favor a division, but the larger population and some powerful leaders refuse to accept such a plan.