Iraqi elections

Interesting article on ATonline analyzing the Iraqi elections.

It focuses on the role and tactics of Chalabi. Main points:

-Chalabi's goal is to ensure that the Shi'ite religious parties continue to dominate Iraqi politics, and he seems to be playing the Shiite sectarianism card as an electoral tactic.
-In the 2009 local elections, Maliki had been successful in playing the nationalist card, which raised fears among religious parties that they could become quite weak; neither did it please Iran, which is close to the Iraqi religious parties. So Chalabi, in Iran, organized for the religious parties (al Sadr and ISCI) to make peace with one another and strengthened the religious movement and organized its comeback. One key strategy here was the anti-Baath campaign, organized by Chalabi.
-This anti-Baath campaign has dealt a blow to the nationalist al-Iraqiya, which include Iyad Allawi.
-This has forced Maliki to back away from its previous nationalist stance: the result was Maliki's loss of much of his own appeal as someone able to rise above sectarianism and project an image of a national leader for Sunnis and Shi'ite alike.