The news from Iraq is very disturbing. The land where civilization began is now slowly becoming a desolate wasteland. In his address to the American Congress Prime Minister ALlawi maintained that the War is now winding down and that conditions for a free and fair elections exist in Iraq, barring 3 provinces. This view is needlessly generous, and there is no tinge of reality in it. Iraq and its civil society has completely fragmented into a whole range of tribal. ethnic and sectarian groups and in these conditions elections are impossible.
In any case the vast majority of the people feel that the present government is one composed of collaborators, and therefore does not inspire confidence in the minds of ordinary Irqis.
In these circumstances only the United Nations can help. Even the UN is treated with suspicion here, (recall the explosion at the UN Headquarters) because of the association with the sanction regime imposed after Bush Senior's War in 1991