Iraq has hosted no less than three momentous handovers of power by the US-led coalition since the end of the war in 2003, each accompanied by slightly higher expectations that a more sovereign and more legitimate Iraqi state could finally emerge to start mending the fractured society.

The success of January's parliamentary elections, whose results were announced on Sunday, is likely to depend on the extent that the winners can share power, and create the climate for a political solution to the country's bloody insurgency.