The year that is about to start will probably lead to a shift of political power in Iraq’s modern history, while the country struggles with an revolution that has perplexed US strategists and their pre-war optimistic predictions.

Iraqis are supposed to go to the polls three times – first to choose a new parliament on 30 January, then to decide on a new constitution and finally – if this is ratified – to choose yet another legislature by the end of the year.

Next month’s ballot will be the first since the April 2003 collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime. And the vote in December will complete the steps advocated by the Bush administration to transform Iraq from one of the Middle East’s most ruthless dictatorships into a democracy.

It’s a difficult time for a nation of nearly 26 million people, with a volatile Sunni-Shiite divide. If the plan works, the United States may be able to plan a return for its troops. However, few of the optimistic forecasts about Iraq have come true.

Instead, Iraq, which can already be considered as America’s bloodiest military operation since the Vietnam war, must also deal with the tonnes of missing weapons and ammunition feared to have fallen into the hands of

insurgents.

This time last year, some American strategists imagined US troops fading into the background. But last month, US troops were locked in their most intense urban combat – for the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah – since Vietnam.

Instead of reducing the number of soldiers, the Pentagon will be boosting US force levels to about 150,000 by mid-January.

If elections do take place, power will probably shift to the long-suppressed Shiite Muslim community, an estimated 60 per cent of the population, spell an end to Sunni domination.

Iraq would become the only Arab land with a Shiite-

dominated government – an discomforting prospect for Arab countries with large Shiite populations. Only non-Arab Iran is currently under Shiite rule. Some urban Iraqis shudder at the prospect of Tehran-style clerical rule, although key Shiite politicians dismiss those concerns as unfounded.

However, it will take considerable political skill for Iraq’s leaders to manoeuvre through this without inflaming sectarian and ethnic passions among Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Turkmen, Christians and others who make up this country’s population.

Sunni Arabs already form the basis of the rebellion, much of it believed to be from the old network of Saddam’s Baath party. If the Sunnis feel dispossessed of a meaningful role in the new Iraq, rebel ranks will grow.

The Kurds, between 14 and 20 per cent of the population and the most pro-American sector, are anxious to maintain the self-rule they have enjoyed in the north since 1991.

If they feel threatened, or if the new constitution strips them of self-rule, the Kurds may push for independence, arguing that Washington owes it to them for providing militiamen to fight with US troops in the 2003 invasion.

But the dismemberment of Iraq would alarm not only every country in the region but the Europeans and the Americans as well.

More of concern would be the response of the Sunni Arab minority. Sunnis were the backbone of Saddam’s Republican Guard and security services, which went underground following the collapse of the regime, building alliances with foreign and Iraqi Islamic extremists.

The Sunnis are divided between those who have opted to participate in politics and those who reject anything that shows they could be cooperating with an American force they regard as occupiers.

Among those who reject cooperation is an alliance of about 3,000 Sunni clerics – the Association of Muslim Scholars. They have called for a boycott of elections to protest against both the attack on Fallujah and the continued US presence.

The challenges facing Iraq will be to draw them into the political process, perhaps through power-sharing formulae or guarantees of Sunni status to lure them away from Islamic extremists.