In the coming days the future of Iraq may be in peril. Yesterday, 35 political parties and organizations largely representing Sunni Arabs signed a statement calling for the Iraq’s election commission to be disbanded and asking for a new election to be monitored by the United Nations and European Union. The Shiites responded yesterday by asking exactly what kind of guarantee they would have that those threatening boycott would recognize the next election. As our Eli Lake reports today, the chairman of the commission, Adel al-Lamy, called these threats a form of extortion. We agree with him.

The losers in this election have some legitimate gripes. The preliminary numbers released Monday suggest an almost impossibly high number of Iraqis voted for the United Iraqi Alliance. Men we trust, like liberal candidate Mithal al-Alusi, have said that many operatives from the smaller parties have been threatened by the militias affiliated with the big ones. And we can’t help but question the role Iran may have played to boost the numbers of the huge Shiite bloc that looks like it will hold at least a numeric majority in the new parliament.

Amid these rising tensions, parties now are meeting in Baghdad to apportion seats in the new parliament and positions in the next government to entice the losers to keep their pledge to air their grievances in the political arena. A free Iraq hangs now in the balance. At any moment, another car bomb at a Shiite mosque or a another round of revenge killings from a Shiite militia could tip the balance and exacerbate a dirty war.

So the politicians face hard choices. For the Shiite leaders, like Prime Minister Jaafari, now is the time to follow through on his pledges to investigate violence from militias affiliated with his party and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Mr. Jaafari will also need to commit to begin the promised discussions to amend the constitution as soon as possible and to rethink some of the stifling provisions on federalism. Sunni leaders, like Adnan al-Dulaimi, will need to begin to lay out what the options are for the minority in Iraq. If Sunni leaders opt to make war on the new government, they will be fighting the Shiites, the Kurds and the Americans. They will lose.

This is a real test for the political maturity of Ayad Allawi, the former premier, who is using heated rhetoric. He might want to follow the example of Ahmad Chalabi, who did far worse at the polls, and accept that this election was, more than anything else, a confessional referendum. Mr. Allawi’s deputies are courting trouble by with talk of “taking to the streets.”

We have little doubt that President Bush will need to intervene to prevent the dissolution of this government before it has a chance even to convene. After the last election, American encouragement to compromise came too late, and the government was powerless as the enemy mounted a counter-offensive to the vote they could not prevent. It’s not a mistake Mr. Bush would want to repeat after a wonderful election in which the stakes couldn’t be higher.