If Allawi's suggestions are implemented, how would they deal with the Shia militia? Presumably the Sunni insurgency will teeter out without foreign support or continuous attacks, perceived or actually conducted, from the Shia -- removing the main cause of its popular support -- thus allowing relative stability to set in. All the internal points really revolve around how the Shia will use their new mantle of power in Iraq. All examples so far are dark and pessimistic: violence, death squads, militias, and revenge...

That does not take into account, as you astutely noted, the willingness of the notoriously self-interested Middle Eastern powers to work together somehow. Iran will not give up her dream of a satellite Shia Iraq; Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan will never tolerate an Iranian vassal on their border; Israel is an anomaly anyway; Turkey will not accept the possibility of a neighboring Kurdish sub-state (assuming some sort of decentralized federation can be worked out on what is "Iraq" on the map right now) fueling Kurdish nationalist sentiments and the accompanied terrorism in her Eastern regions. And an America tired of the occupation and eager to leave, no matter what will happen behind the mess of their creation, will remove the manpower of the only force capable of even vaguely holding together a central Iraqi government from the equation. His wishes for an international peacekeeping force is, well, wishful thinking. Everybody is tired of Iraq. Everybody points at America and say, "this is your stupid mess; we've had enough. Deal with it." Nobody's going to come. And America will leave.

Oh, and that assuming that the statesmanship to even push the process forward exists in the first place. The Iraqi government so far displays no such leadership. Only incompetence.

Of course, behind Allawi's vague descriptions of what the new Iraqi state would look like, I'd assume a lot of injustices and failure to protect human rights abound. But that's what you gotta take when the alternative is this current chaos.

It is a reflecting analysis, however. Something you'd wish would happen, and is actually realistically possible to happen should the elements be there. They aren't.