BAGHDAD, 24 February 2006 — The next few days could decide whether Iraq can pull back once again from the brink of all-out civil war or if a sharp spike in sectarian violence will finally tear the delicate political process apart.

A bombing that wrecked a major Shiite shrine on Wednesday and sparked reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques could not have come at a more sensitive time for Iraq and the US diplomats trying to push together a unity government that can bring stability and let Washington pull out its 130,000 troops.

Talks to form a new government, more than two months after elections for Iraq’s first full-term Parliament, were already struggling as Shiites and Kurds jostled for power with minority Sunnis who have newly joined the US-backed political process.

Divisions were so deep that the United States and Britain warned this week that they had invested too much blood and money in Iraq to see a Cabinet dominated by partisan militias.

Analysts say some of the worst sectarian violence since the US-led invasion of 2003, in which more than 130 people have been killed, will only drive Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds further apart and nudge the country that much closer to full-scale war.

“Given the difficulties the negotiations have already faced because of sectarian differences, the whole process could collapse. Polarization is increasing, not decreasing,” said Joost Hilterman, analyst for the International Crisis Group.

“The danger of civil war is extremely serious. There have been efforts by the insurgents to start civil war for a couple of years now, but they have not succeeded because of institutional restraints. Those restraints have begun to erode.”

Among those restraints were Shiite clerics, he said. If Iraqis can agree on one thing, it is that the country’s most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, has played a crucial role in averting a slide to war.

Sistani has repeatedly prohibited reprisals when huge car bombs have slain dozens of Shiites at a time. He tempered a call for protests after the bombing at the Samarra shrine with a demand for restraint and a ban on attacks on Sunni mosques.

This time many people paid no heed. Shiite militias roamed the streets and appeared to be involved in violence. Some of that may reflect jostling for influence among Shiite factions. Iraq’s top Sunni religious group, the Muslim Clerics Association, highlighted Sistani’s failure to control his mass following in all but unprecedented criticism of him on Thursday.

Add to that an interim government riven by factional splits and new, US-trained security forces that are still weak, infiltrated by criminals and tainted by militia allegiances, and Iraq appears to be sliding into chaos.

Institutions remain in place, but their grip is tenuous. “The issue hangs on the next few days. Either the gates of hell open onto a civil war or the Shiites will take more power with the excuse that Sunni leaders are unable to rein in increasing terrorist activity,” said Hazim Al-Naimi, a political science professor at Mustansiriya University.

“Only the US military is preventing war in some areas. In cities like Mosul, the police would be thrown out in days if the US military left. There would be ethnic cleansing.”

The stakes are high for the United States, which is keen to see the political process succeed so it can withdraw its forces. But that also depends on Iraqi forces being ready to take over. Sunni Arabs have been complaining for months that the Shiite-run Interior Ministry is running or at least turning a blind eye to death squads operating within its ranks and targeting their community. It denies condoning such squads.

Sunnis say the jails are full of their men. The Shiite-led government says the detainees are part of the Sunni-led insurgency that has ravaged Iraq since the war that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni who oppressed the Shiite majority. Tit-for-tat killings are already the norm and officials are seen to represent their community rather the whole nation.

Iraq’s main Sunni Arab bloc pulled out of talks yesterday on the formation of a new Cabinet, blaming the ruling Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), for failing to protect Sunnis. But Abbas Al-Bayati, a UIA official and member of the new Parliament, was positive, predicting the violence would finally force all sides to overcome communal divisions and push ahead with forming the Cabinet, if only to stop things getting worse.

Iraq’s communities are divided even among themselves.

Some Sunnis went to a crisis meeting hosted by the president yesterday while others threatened to boycott the political process altogether, as they did during interim polls last year. The Shiite bloc could not agree on its candidate for prime minister and ended nominating incumbent Ibrahim Jaafari by just one vote.