Amatzia Baram: The number of suicide bombings will increase steadily as militants do their utmost to undermine the new government.
Unless this challenge is quickly overcome by the United States and its coalition military allies, the entire process will collapse. With stability, though, the government can work on its other priorities, the foremost being increasing electricity production, creating jobs and providing housing. Because of sabotage, the amount of electricity being generated is a third of what the Americans had promised. This will be solved through buying generators for neighbourhoods of about 100 families and putting them in charge of management and providing security.
With jobs, the model is US President Franklin Roosevelt's 'New Deal' of the 1930s, through which millions of positions were created. There is no shortage of money or work to be done. Baghdad is a prime example - because of the collapsed infrastructure, the city looks like a giant rubbish dump with piles of refuse and leaking sewage mains.
Another source of employment will be the construction of the one million new homes that are needed. People with jobs will be able to pay for them with 20-year loans.
There are so many other things, but the basic point is that the system has to be jump-started.
Former president Saddam Hussein is being held at a special prison in Iraq by the CIA and will be handed over to the interim government in a few weeks.
