Iraq's future political system: drivers and forward scenarios

the civil war intensified as a result of the ethno-religious identities highlighted by the Baathist regime change in Iraq in 2003; In the following these conflicts, with the advent of ISIS, regional and international interventions in the country reached their highest levels; finally, Iraq's future direction in the form of a nation-state confronted with serious challenges by holding a referendum on independence for Kurdistan. So, the main question of the study is that what can be considered scenarios for the Iraqi political system for the next decade under the influence of the political-social environment of Iraq and the various components of domestic, regional and international?

in order to perform this future study, we use Peter Schwartz scenario planning method.

After examining the factors and drivers affecting ethno-religious conflicts of Iraq in three domestic, regional and international dimensions, we identified two main uncertainties - as determinants and with limited certainty - about the future of the Iraqi political system which are: Increase or decrease in authority of the central government; and increase or decrease in ethnic and religious conflicts. Based on these uncertainties, three major scenarios were designed: integrated Iraq with the Kurdish region, disintegration of Iraq and federalism.

If the power and authority of the central government increases and ethno-religious conflicts are reduced, the Iraqi political system will lead to coherence. Reduction in the authority of the central government and as well as increasing ethnic-religious conflicts will break down Iraq. The simultaneous increase in the authority of the central government and ethno-religious conflicts will also lead to the emergence of a federalist scenario (based on ethno-religious lines).