Analysis: Most experts paint a grim future for country

As Iraq heads toward its second week of "sovereignty", experts differ over a range of possible scenarios for its future.

These scenarios range from an Iraq that is relatively stable, becoming more prosperous, and set on a forward path ahead of where Afghanistan is today, to one that isn't disintegrating, but has devolved into a more authoritarian regime than the US would like, with tense relations between the Iraqi government and American troops.

Worse yet, experts say that by the summer of 2005, Iraq could be staggering under "uncontrolled Islamic extremism", with elections postponed indefinitely, and the country is teetering on verge of civil war.

Most say the historic challenges that Iraq represents, coupled with mistakes made by the CPA over the past year, put the possibility of stability and prosperity out of reach.

Others are not inclined to believe that Iraq will devolve into total chaos and the breakup of the country. At least not yet. The more optimistic believe there is something in between.

Jon Alterman, a former member of the State Department policy planning staff, and a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said: "One can foresee some decent scenarios, and even more bad ones; but the largest number are middling, especially if Iraqis become more engaged in their own affairs."

But even more engagement may not be enough for success. "For the first time, I think failure is a possibility," says Michael O'Hanlon, an analyst at the Brookings Institution.

O'hanlon, who counselled against the war before launching the invasion adds, "There are degrees of failure, but if the next year is a slow slide to fragmentation ... and civil conflict, it will be hard to call it anything else."

With power now officially transferred from a US occupation to an interim government, Iraq's pros-pects shift to a new set of questions, more dependent on what Iraqis themselves do than on the US: how quickly the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi can establish legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Iraqis.

According to Charles Pena, a security analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington, warns, "A year from now we may very well be dealing with an Iraq that has been turned into a focal point in the war on terrorism."

Therefore, Pena believes, "The faster we remove the US presence ... the more likely it is that Iraq does not become a foothold of radical Islam."

The writer is an Arab journalist based in Washington