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According to the International Republican Institute, Iraq may hold as many as 10 elections in 2009, more than were held in the whole Arab world this year combined. These include the January provincial elections; municipal and district council elections; the referendum on the security agreement with the United States; possible referendums on Kirkuk and on whether the people of Basra want to form an autonomous region in the south like the one in Iraqi Kurdistan; and, finally, the parliamentary elections set for the end of the year.

Each election will provide an answer to a critical question about Iraq's future: Can Iraq break free of paralyzing sectarianism? Can the western Sunnis successfully reenter the political space they abandoned in 2005? Will local authorities secure more independence from central Baghdad? Will there be federal regions in Iraq other than Iraqi Kurdistan? Can Iraq avoid a Sarajevo-like clash over Kirkuk? Will there be a peaceful transition of power from one group of politicians to another? These questions will not be easily answered, and each poses dangers and difficulties for the current government and for the United States, which hopes to be out of the country by 2011, if not sooner.

But beyond planning for the beginning of the drawdown of U.S. forces, the Obama transition team has so far given little indication of its objectives in Iraq for 2009 or of how it will "staff" the problem. What will be the administration's view, for instance, on the Basra referendum? If autonomy for Basra is approved, this vote could lead eventually to the partition of Iraq advocated by Vice President-elect Joe Biden when he was a senator. What is the administration's view on much-needed change to Iraq's parliamentary electoral law? Unless this law is amended, sectarian parties probably will continue to dominate in Baghdad.

If militias or insurgents threaten to disrupt December's parliamentary elections, will the Obama administration seek to secure those elections, even if U.S. troops have already pulled out of the cities? Will a large National Security Council team headed by a deputy national security adviser coordinate policy and make recommendations to the president, or will Hillary Rodham Clinton's State Department take the lead? Will there be a high-powered ambassador in Iraq who is as capable as Ryan Crocker, the current ambassador, or will a vacancy be allowed to linger? Each of these questions needs to be answered soon -- before Iraqis provide their electoral answers.

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