And so we turn to the country that previously overshadowed Afghanistan in this regard: Iraq. Allawi’s al-Iraqiya coalition, for which many Iraqi Sunnis voted, won the March elections by a sliver but was outmaneuvered by Shiite factions, which were aided by the Iranians. Allawi’s decision to agree to join a government led by al-Maliki, who will remain prime minister, is significant far beyond simply the formation of a government in Baghdad. At stake is the enfranchisement or disenfranchisement of the Sunni, who voted en masse for the first time in March (they largely boycotted the 2005 election). Allawi’s rejection of the coalition taking shape under al-Maliki could have led to a rapid destabilization of the still-fragile security situation in Iraq.
But progress does not mean that the issue is settled. There has begun to be broad acceptance of the distribution of ministries and Cabinet positions. Allawi himself will be placed at the head of a newly created council to oversee security and foreign policy issues — the National Council for Strategic Policies (NCSP). This means that he has agreed to command an entity that itself is an unknown quantity. Not only its shape, but its influence and authority remain to be seen. And the question for the Sunni is not one of mere title, but of the practical mechanisms through which they command and exercise their modest share of political power.
Post-Baathist Iraq is a young entity and its governmental institutions are new and still taking shape. But the long-standing and enduring reality in Iraq is the struggle between the Sunnis and the Shia (with Iraqi Kurds guarding their own interests as best they can). Progress has been made in shoehorning much of this struggle into the political realm, though political power is still being abused for sectarian purposes. In a very real sense, this centuries-old ethno-sectarian struggle is barely contained inside political process. The struggle has not gone away; it has merely moved from one arena — the formation of a coalition and the distribution of power, ministry by ministry — to another: the powers that are and are not assigned to the NCSP, and the means provided to the NCSP to wield and protect those powers. At stake are the delicate balance of power and the fragile stability that have been so hard won in Iraq. At play are powerful and deep ethno-sectarian tensions that remain capable of dragging the country back into civil bloodshed.
While the war rages in Afghanistan, meanwhile, the players and the stakes appear set. This next year will be telling, but the fighting will continue. In Iraq, despite the outward appearance of peace, the country remains on the brink. And to understand that, the two issues at the forefront of our mind are 1) the mechanisms that the Sunni will accept as sufficient to wield and defend their share of the political pie, and 2) the understandings — or lack thereof —between Washington and Tehran about what happens next in Baghdad.
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