The media have been going on for months now saying that "the whole country" is turmoil, "chaos involves the whole country", "things are getting a bit better in this or that city while the situation in the whole country is still ****ed up".
That's so much of a lie.
Since at least a year Iraq has been successfully stabilized by coalition troops, and the role of the Iraqi forces is growing.
Set aside all the so-called good news coming from Iraq (which the media deliberately ignore ), I want to point out that as Iraqi government says (yeah, the one recognized and legitimized by the UN ) only THREE out of eighteeen governorates ( Land Divisions 18 governorates, including: Al Anbar, Al Basrah, Al Muthanna, Al Qadisiyah, An Najaf, Arbil, As Sulaymaniyah, At Ta'mim, Babil, Baghdad, Dahuk, Dhi Qar, Diyala, Karbala', Maysan, Ninawa, Salah ad Din, and Wasit ) have not been totally taken under full control.
To date, Falluja (Al Anbar district) has been liberated and taken control of.
The areas out of gov't control make up part of the so called Sunni Triangle, with Baghdad, Baquba, Tikrit, Samarra, Falluja, Najaf, Ramadi, and all the funny cities we hear of on the news.
The rest of the country is stable and not in political or social unrest.
It's been like that for months now and the situation is getting way better.
Elections will work, in my opinion. I'm not exceedingly optimistic, since I know they also said US- backed Karzai's government was in control of the capital city Kabul only, while Afghani elections were a tremendous success anyways.
But the troops had had a full 3 yr time there before elections could be held.
I believe there'll be a lot of terrorist attacks and such. I believe elections will take place and attacks notwithstanding, they will work.
Some or many elected representatives will be murdered after elections, but if the Sunnis accept to join the government and the system, I'm hopeful Iraq will get its way to peace and stability.