Iraqis Form Government

The Iraqis have finally formed a colation government...sort of:

The Iraqi Parliament approved 36 ministers who will form a cabinet led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a member of the dominant Shiite coalition that captured a majority of the votes cast in nationwide elections on Dec. 15. But three of the most important posts in the government — the Ministries of Defense, Interior and National Security — were left vacant because Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders could not agree on who should fill them. Those three ministries are especially sensitive because each controls some part of Iraq's new security forces. That gives them a central role in fighting the guerrilla insurgency, but they have been accused of carrying out sectarian vendettas as well.

Unfortunately, this may be one of those Pyrrhic victories; while technically a government has been formed, the contention between the factions that resulted in such a delay in it's formation, and the government's incompleteness, may mean that little has actually been accomplished. Kevin Drum for one thinks it'll be much harder to carry out the next step; amending the Iraqi constitution.

Last October, in a desperate attempt to get Sunni support for the referendum on the proposed Iraqi constitution, Shiite leaders agreed to form a special committee to consider amendments to the constitution within four months of forming a government. That was mostly a fig leaf, since no one agreed to actually change the constitution, but it was enough to allow the Sunni bloc to hold out hope that they'd eventually get some of the concessions they were after.

But that's been on hold ever since the December parliamentary elections because no government had been formed. Now, though, the clock is ticking. With a government in place, Iraq's leadership is obligated to form the promised committee and begin considering constitutional changes.

So what's going to happen? The leader of Iraq's biggest Shiite party pretty much repudiated the deal months ago, and the most likely outcome seems to be either no changes or else mere cosmetic changes. And then the Sunnis will have to decide: do they decide to live with the constitution they hated back in October, or do they pull out of the government when the constitutional committee fails to deliver on any substantive changes?

So as with all things Iraq, two steps forward seem to be met by one step back.