Is he heading for the resignation of the government and early elections, or for a security solution and financial incentives? Or repeat the scenario of Samarra and ISIS? Or does Iraq have the rest of an army capable of seizing the initiative?

The Iraqi army (unlike Lebanon so far) was unable to protect young people who demonstrated peacefully, so they were killed in cold blood, and this repression may become fiercer after 10-25. There are many factors that play in the interest of the government, which Iran, not even America, does not want to bring down, and the timid global condemnations and Faleh al-Fayyad's visit to America during the demonstrations are only evidence of that.

Therefore, a radical change is considered unlikely. This is supported by the fact that the momentum of the demonstrations does not include the whole of Iraq, as well as the demonstrators who do not yet have a clear leadership or a specific agenda, and they are struggling in the face of heavily armed militias that are bloody and ready to kill. The demonstrations may continue for a longer period, until the influence of the reference and the parties in power decline, and clear demands are produced, or splits occur in the authority, and international condemnations escalate.

The possibility of the scene unraveling in the central Euphrates and the southern provinces remains possible, after it became clear that there was a conflict that was baptized with blood between the militias and their environment that was loyal to them. No matter how many directions there are in light of this anxious scene, which is open to all scenarios, we must diagnose the Iraqi cause realistically so that we can draw the path closest to reality.

The reality of Iraq today is contrary to its constitution, due to the suspension of the constitution or most of its articles by unconstitutional militias that linked Iraq to the axis of Iran. According to this dilemma, Fitch Solutions has drawn 3 main scenarios for change in Iraq over the next decade.

Fitch Solution suggested the scenario of fragile federalism amid sectarian tensions and high levels of violence, although it mentioned two unlikely scenarios: national reconciliation, gradual stability, and broader powers for the regions, and a scenario of civil war and the disintegration of Iraq.

My view focuses on preventing a civil war that may lead to the possibility of partition, and also excludes the scenario of national reconciliation in light of the difficult reality of Iraq today, and makes the fragile federalism more likely, because it is a realistic scenario. Today we have three (federal) provinces that we can say are within the constitution, which are the provinces of the Kurdistan Region, and fifteen centrally affiliated provinces to Baghdad in violation of the constitution.

In front of this realistic dilemma, there are three scenarios, either that the Kurdistan region disintegrates and the constitution changes, and I think that this scenario is separate from reality. As for the Kurdistan Region to secede due to Iraq's refusal to restore its constitution, and I think that this scenario may be possible if Baghdad insists on refusing to return Iraq to its constitution. The third scenario is to restore the reality of Iraq to its constitution, implement Article 140 and other suspended articles (67 articles), and move towards federalizing its provinces according to the constitution. It is certain that the return of the reality of Iraq to its constitution requires an end to the phenomenon of militias linked to Iran and its weapons outside the constitution.

Yes, today there is an opposite wave against Iran, but Iran is stubborn and believes that it sees in Iraq an outlet and a card that it is obliged today to use in its struggle with Trump, in order to preserve its regime and influence. Therefore, its militias killed young demonstrators with unprecedented brutality in Baghdad this October, and it may repeat it and drag the country perhaps into a civil war. Until Iran enters an uprising similar to the uprising in Lebanon and Iraq, the reality of Iraq in contravention of its constitution will serve Iran’s factions that owned its security, military and political decisions, at a time when there is no realistic and constitutional solution to confront these militias, closer to federalism, even if they remain fragile until further notice.

But the problem facing the federal scenario is that the mentality of Iraqis, Sunnis and Shiites, unlike the Kurds, is a centralized mentality that hates the federalism that made the Kurdistan region the only good exception in Iraq in 2003, and made centralization a reality that Iraq did not straighten out, whether before or after 2003. It seems that the conflict will continue far from a stable Iraq, until the Sunnis and Shiites unite mentally, or at least are convinced that politics is the art of the possible abomination and not the impossible desired.

Writer Dr. Omar Abdel Sattar Mahmoud