The US will not pull out after the election, risk of Iraq failure on its own is too great - instead there will be a new goverment who will get more of the security issues handed over, but US military will be there for years.
Now, I´m not sure that the election will mean instant peace, since the Sunni muslims will loose power to the Shi‘a muslims, which is the main reason behind the current insurgent problem. We can hope that Shi‘a politicians will try and unite the country, but I´m sure insurgents will hit them hard in trying to destablise Iraq after the election.
Now the scary thought is that Iran, which is ruled by Shi‘a muslims, probably are trying to pull all strings in Iraq for their their own agenda, and might win no matter what the outcome is of the election...
If Shi‘a muslims win the election and succeed in uniting Iraq, then Iran have already influenced the iraqi Shi‘a politicians via the Shi‘a priests in Najaf, and other parts of Iraq - this could leed to a less "friendly" Iraq for both the US and other countries/groups (maybe a mini Iran model, where the real power is with the priests, and not the politicians)
If Shi‘a muslims win the election but do not succeed in uniting Iraq, then we might see a war between Sunni and Shi‘a muslims, which will mean problems for the US, and probably wipe out a big "possible free" democratic middle east country.
So far the Iraqi Shi‘a muslims have been trying to avoid escalating the problems in Iraq, however not too long ago Shi‘a cleric Muqtada al Sadr caused problems in Najaf, and I´m sure that if the "good" Shi‘a muslims do not watch their backs, then problems will show again (too many fanatics with AK47s)
Its important that whoever wins the election will unite the country - it is also important that Iran will be "pinned down", so their influence will be minimal.
The US pulling out of Iraq in the near future is not important - unless their destination is Tehran
h34r: