The rival factions which make up this diverse state, founded at the crossroads of the Arab, Persian and Ottoman worlds, lie at the roots of the violence that has plagued Iraq since Saddam's downfall, experts say.

"The American intervention has removed the lid on what Iraq is as a diverse country," author and Middle East specialist Adel Darwish told AFP.

"But then the Americans did not have a plan. Had they had a plan they would have worked with these powers" among Iraq's neighbours.

The fall of the regime in April 2003 sparked a new sense of hope among Iraq's Kurdish and Shiite populations, who suffered persecution under Saddam's brutal Sunni Arab-led reign.

After Iraq's 1958 revolution, the country was on the path to becoming a secular and republican state. When the Baathists took power in 1968, the regime began focusing on Arab nationalism and socialism.

After Saddam took power in 1979, the dominant ideology became one of purely Iraqi nationalism and he handed control of key state institutions to a small circle of trusted party faithful and his family members.

Baathism ultimately became a tool to control society rather than an ideology of progress while fear of the regime quickly became the cement which bound together this ethnically and religiously diverse country.

"Baathism and secularism was a levelling sword. To be used against everybody equally," Darwish said.

From the very beginning of his reign, Saddam unleashed a campaign of brutal violence against anyone who dared challenge his authority, with the Kurdish and Shiite communities bearing the brunt.

Sunni Arabs were not spared, but suffered less as they were more closely linked to the state apparatus formed under the Ottoman empire and left in place by the British and the monarchy.

With the fall of the Baathist regime, the minority religious and ethnic groups took centre stage in the construction of the new Iraq.

But rather than helping foster a sense of national unity, they quickly emerged as elements of division.

"The Americans were able to dismantle the regime and the state; and now they are unable to put it back together," said Mustafa al-Ani, director of security studies at the Gulf Research Centre, based in Dubai.

"Scoring a military victory is easy, but a political victory is more difficult to achieve."

The demands of these ethnic and religious groups were enshrined in the new Iraqi constitution and were at the root of laws on oil ownership and the decentralisation of power to regional authorities.

Paradoxically, rather than inspiring unity, giving voice to these minority groups led to an upsurge in violence by armed militants turning against one another and sparked wave after wave of bloody massacres.

From this point on, the new minority groups defined themselves by their differences rather than their similarities, as needed to establish a united democratic nation.

"What is happening in Iraq is an insult to democracy. It is the democracy of the Kalashnikov. What we see in parliament is the result of control of the political process by militias. I don't see real democracy," Ani added.

Iraq needs to return to its common principles in order to achieve a national identity and avoid breaking up into multiple parts, analysts said.

"A large part of the Iraqi leadership is extremely worried that their country might become a buffer zone between Iran and the West; and that is why they want to keep it together," Darwish said.

But Alani said he believes it is already too late.

"The formula for dismemberment and dislocation of Iraq is written in the constitution, in the oil law, and in the provincial law.

"A rapid pullout of US troops will leave a power vacuum where local powers will evolve towards separate mini-states.

"The ingredients for division and disintegration of Iraq are already there. I don't see any chance for Iraq to survive if the US decides to cut and run," warned Alani.

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