Iraq looks ahead to provincial, national elections

American forces are slated to pull out of Iraq's cities by June and leave Iraq by the end of 2011, according to a yet-to-be ratified security agreement between the two countries. The U.S.-led invasion began nearly six years ago and has resulted in 4,190 American deaths.

But it is how the troops leave, and the state of the country they leave behind, relatively secure or chaotic, that is sure to be one of the biggest foreign policy challenges facing the new administration.

U.S. officials say determining the level of stability in Iraq depends on the much anticipated provincial elections scheduled for late January. Those elections, along with national elections in late 2009, could either push Iraq's religious and ethnic groups toward an elusive reconciliation or further divide them.

The elections will feature political races heavily influenced by Iraq's complex and sectarian conflicts.

They could exacerbate tensions in southern Iraq between U.S.-backed Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's nationalist Islamic Dawa Party and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the two main Shiite Muslim parties in the country.

The results of the internal Shiite rivalry are likely to determine whether Iraq is broken up into semiautonomous regions or retains a strong central government. The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council wants to push for the creation of a nine-province federal region, which Dawa fears could jeopardize Iraq's unity.

"Much is at stake in Basra and other oil-bearing governorates," said Joost Hiltermann, an expert on Iraq for the International Crisis Group think tank. "And Baghdad is the prize for those who seek the restoration of strong central government in Iraq."

A brief tour of some of the provinces:

Diyala

In Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province, buildings are pockmarked with bullet holes, a reminder of the failures of the election in January 2005.

Most Sunni Arabs stayed home from the polls then, angry about the U.S. invasion and the policies that followed. But the boycott is now viewed as the Sunnis' biggest blunder.

In Baqubah, like Baghdad and Mosul, the election results, which gave a disproportionate majority to other religious and ethnic groups, helped fuel violence.