In State Failure 101 I identify an unstable inversion of priorities in Iraq. This can best be seen using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The main effort is being directed towards self-actualization (elections/democracy) rather than the delivery of basic survival needs (power, gas, and water). Global guerrillas have surged into this gap. Their attacks on infrastructure have been very effective: every measure of basic services shows production below pre-war levels (gas, oil, electricity, water, etc.).
Basic services are the core political goods of the modern state. A failure to deliver these services will delegitimize any state that does not quickly correct the problem. Allawi's interim government and the US occupation lost its legitimacy in large part due to this process.
We are about to see another victim. The new government in Iraq is paralyzed (due to the descent of Iraq towards Primary Loyalties). It can't find a way to divide the spoils among the winners. While these factions continue to argue, the process of state failure continues to undermine its future legitimacy. Democracy or no, we are close to that point now. The UPI's Baghdad correspondent, Beth Potter, picks up on this trend:
Iraqi voters aren't happy. They don't care that some of the biggest political changes ever to happen in their lifetime are going on in their country. All they know is that the electricity still is off for hours every day, the water doesn't always flow out of the faucets, there are still long gas queues at the stations, and the situation still seems pretty lawless in the streets.
NOTE: Global guerrillas thrive in countries where the state has lost its legitimacy.