Partition, strongman or anarchy are likely outcomes, federalism may be part of answer, says National Intelligence Estimate

"If strengthened Iraqi Security Forces (I.S.F.), more loyal to the government and supported by coalition forces, are able to reduce levels of violence and establish more effective security for Iraq’s population, Iraqi leaders could have an opportunity to begin the process of political compromise necessary for longer term stability, political progress, and economic recovery.
Nevertheless, even if violence is diminished, given the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene, Iraqi leaders will be hard pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation in the time frame of this estimate [12 to 18 months]."

"Decades of subordination to Sunni political, social, and economic domination have made the Shia deeply insecure about their hold on power. This insecurity leads the Shia to mistrust U.S. efforts to reconcile Iraqi sects and reinforces their unwillingness to engage with the Sunnis on a variety of issues, including adjusting the structure of Iraq’s federal system, reining in Shia militias, and easing de-Baathification.
Many Sunni Arabs remain unwilling to accept their minority status, believe the central government is illegitimate and incompetent, and are convinced that Shia dominance will increase Iranian influence over Iraq, in ways that erode the state’s Arab character and increase Sunni repression.
The absence of unifying leaders among the Arab Sunni or Shia with the capacity to speak for or exert control over their confessional groups limits prospects for reconciliation."

"Despite real improvements, the Iraqi Security Forces (I.S.F.) — particularly the Iraqi police — will be hard pressed in the next 12-18 months to execute significantly increased security responsibilities, and particularly to operate independently against Shia militias with success. Sectarian divisions erode the dependability of many units, many are hampered by personnel and equipment shortfalls, and a number of Iraqi units have refused to serve outside of the areas where they were recruited."

"If coalition forces were withdrawn rapidly during the term of this estimate, we judge that this almost certainly would lead to a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict in Iraq, intensify Sunni resistance to the Iraqi government, and have adverse consequences for national reconciliation."

"A number of identifiable developments could help to reverse the negative trends driving Iraq’s current trajectory. They include:
¶Broader Sunni acceptance of the current political structure and federalism to begin to reduce one of the major sources of Iraq’s instability.
¶Significant concessions by Shia and Kurds to create space for Sunni acceptance of federalism.
¶A bottom-up approach — deputizing, resourcing, and working more directly with neighborhood watch groups and establishing grievance committees — to help mend frayed relationships between tribal and religious groups, which have been mobilized into communal warfare over the past three years.
A key enabler for all of these steps would be stronger Iraqi leadership, which could enhance the positive impact of all the above developments."

"A number of identifiable internal security and political triggering events, including sustained mass sectarian killings, assassination of major religious and political leaders, and a complete Sunni defection from the government have the potential to convulse severely Iraq’s security environment. Should these events take place, they could spark an abrupt increase in communal and insurgent violence and shift Iraq’s trajectory from gradual decline to rapid deterioration with grave humanitarian, political, and security consequences. Three prospective security paths might then emerge:
¶Chaos leading to partition. With a rapid deterioration in the capacity of Iraq’s central government to function, security services and other aspects of sovereignty would collapse. Resulting widespread fighting could produce de facto partition, dividing Iraq into three mutually antagonistic parts. Collapse of this magnitude would generate fierce violence for at least several years, ranging well beyond the time frame of this estimate, before settling into a partially stable end-state.
¶Emergence of a Shia strongman. Instead of a disintegrating central government producing partition, a security implosion could lead Iraq’s potentially most powerful group, the Shia, to assert its latent strength.
¶Anarchic fragmentation of power. The emergence of a checkered pattern of local control would present the greatest potential for instability, mixing extreme ethno-sectarian violence with debilitating intra-group clashes."

source
Office of the Director of National Intelligence. National Intelligence Estimate. Prospects for Iraq's Stability. January 2007.

posted: sunday, february 4, 2007, 9:23 AM ET
update: wednesday, february 7, 2007, 5:40 PM ET

tags: iraq national intelligence estimate