BAGHDAD — The coming year will test Iraq's fledgling democracy, with two key events looming as possible tipping points: the pullout of U.S. forces from the country's cities, and bookend elections in January and December.
The troop withdrawal is pivotal. As Iraq takes charge of its security from the Americans, the civil war might reignite, or the gains of the U.S. troop buildup could prove lasting.
Whatever the outcome, it is likely to emerge gradually as U.S. forces are drawn down under the security agreement signed in November that calls for most troops to leave the cities by the end of June and to leave the country by the end of 2011.
"Are [the Iraqis] able to work it out without sending the country back into screaming civil war? They could, but they could also mess it up," said a U.S. diplomat in Iraq, who like others spoke for this report on condition of anonymity.
Likewise, local elections scheduled for Jan. 31 and a national vote in December to select the next government will go a long way toward clarifying the political order: whether Iraq's democracy matures, evolves into an authoritarian regime, or spurs the country's breakup into Shiite Muslim, Sunni Arab and Kurdish ministates.
U.S. officials hope the elections will help resolve the myriad political disputes -- in contrast to January 2005, when a Sunni boycott created local and national governments with disproportionate Shiite and Kurdish representation, pushing Iraq farther along the path to civil war.
"If we get through these elections and they turn out to be legitimate, I feel that that will really lead us out of this fragile stage into something that is more stable," U.S. Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the senior commander in Iraq, told reporters recently.
U.S. officers argue that times have changed since 2005 and 2006, when political parties co-opted police and army units to carry out killings or, in some cases, purge neighborhoods of members of a religious group. Now, they say, Iraqis won't tolerate a return to the horrid days of civil war, even as U.S. forces withdraw.
They also believe a springtime offensive in southern Iraq that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki launched against the Mahdi Army militia loyal to his onetime ally Muqtada Sadr was crucial in strengthening the government and security institutions.
