Iraq's prime minister will give up his nomination for a new term as head of the country's new government, a senior member of his Shiite party announced, only a few hours before a long-delayed parliament meeting scheduled for Thursday was ultimately postponed by two more days.Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari has "given up his bid and is ready to quit the candidacy in the best interest of the country," the second-highest ranking member of Jafari's Dawa Party, Jawad al-Maliki, said at a nationally televised news conference.
This is of course what we have been pushing to do, as the Sunnis have viewed Al-Jafari as being favorable to the Shiite groups whose militias and "death squads" are currently running rampant through Iraq.
Kevin Drum's feelings on this reflect my own:
This is, I hope, good news, although most of the alternatives to Jafari aren't exactly comforting propositions themselves. Presumably we'll find out what deals have gone down over the weekend.
In other words, it's probably a good thing, but it depends and we'll just have to wait and see. That pretty much is the only way to greet any "positive" news coming out of Iraq.
So we wait and see.
2 comments:
Why does this even matter? The Iraqi "government" controls nothing outside the Bremer Walls of the Green Zone. If there were not rings of U.S. tanks around the Zone, they'd all be dead by the next sunrise. This is even sillier than how the U.S. manipulated its puppets in South Vietnam.
I think you misunderstand what's happening over there. The Iraqi government "controls" significant parts of the country, if by control you mean it is not treated as a hostile outsider by the Shiites who live in those parts. It's in the Sunni dominated areas that the Iraqi government is unwelcome and in that sense you're right, as it's only force that guarantees any measure of authority in those areas. But what's been happening lately is that the Sunni insurgency is being met by a Shiite response, by those militias who operate outside of the government, and by those in the government (and specifically the Interior Ministry) who are sympathetic to are are members of Shiite militias. That's why we here reports of "death squads", and why we are now lately hearing reports of American and Iraqi Army forces confronting Interior Ministry forces or confronting/fighting Shiite militias. In truth, if we left tomorrow, what would probably happen is hard-line Shiites would gain the upper hand, the government would largely shift to their control, and it would be open war between them and the Sunnis. That's why this mess with al-Jafaris is important, because he was favored by those hard-liners. Now, other Iraqis have pushed him aside in the interests of a government that's less in the hands of the militias, and that is an important step. Unfortunately, it's also a very small one and it in no way whatsover guarantees that Iraq can move towards stability now. It's just one little step of one long process that could just as easily go all wrong tomorrow.
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