Gentlemen,
Just from what I read in the news, it seems that there is already alot of ethnic cleansing going on in Iraq. There won't be any need for a formal or informal partition of the country if that continues. It will be partitioned through people voting with their feet, not from some agreement on a piece of paper.

It is beyond my forecasting ability to predict how this phenomenon will affect regional or internal security. But the current effort in Iraq is inexorably leading to this, whether intended or not.

I don't see the Maliki government being able to appeal to all the groups/sects/tribes. Does anybody have confidence in it, either here in Iraq? It just seems to me that the Alawi government had more of a secular vibe to it, with leaders taking a more national perspective.

Our political leaders might eventually be tempted to overthrow the Maliki government, thinking it just won't happen with him in charge. JFK felt that way about Diem, and nothing that followed seemed any better in Vietnam, which was already divided in two.