Iraqi Parliament Meets for Half an Hour, Adjourns Indefinitely

The newly elected Iraqi parliament met yesterday for half an hour and adjourned shortly after an argument over the legislators’ oath of office. The piano player who played as they entered hardly got a decent practice in. The body elected no speaker, and it has decided not to meet again until there’s some progress on who gets what job in the executive. Optimists say to give the project another 30 days. Pessimists see no end to the arguing.

The main stumbling block is the Shi’ite’s nomination of Ibrahim al-Jaafari to be prime minister for a second term, which will be his first under the newly approved constitution. He was re-selected by the Shi’ite bloc in the parliament by one vote (courtesy of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who will eventually be to Iraq what Ayatollah Khomeini was to Iran), defeating Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim. However, the Kurds believe he has been less-than-stellar in his job, and they have joined the Sunni bloc in opposing him.

The math is intriguing in a sort of car-accident-waiting-to-happen sort of way. The total number of legislators is 275. The Shi’ite United Iraqi Alliance has 128 seats (and support from a smaller party holding two more). The Kurds, the two Sunni blocs, and the secular coalition of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi combined with some other parties that don’t like Mr. Jaafari total 141 seats according to the AP. This means that Mr. Jaafari must go, and Mr. Hakim’s backers are all for that. The Medhi Army of Mr. Sadr (which held off the US marines for a while in Fallujah), however, may decide to use bullets rather than ballots if that occurs.

Mr. Jaafari, to his credit, has said that he is prepared to go if that is the price of a deal. “If my people ask me to step aside I will do this,” he said after the parliament adjourned. It could well be that Mr. Hakim could win the support of the other parties, or at least sufficient numbers of them to break the electoral logjam. Mr. Jaafari also said, “If politicians work seriously, we can have a government within a month.” It has been three months since the Iraqi people voted; apparently, another month doesn’t matter to him.

Until there is a government in Baghdad (or at least a government in the Green Zone), there won’t be that many Iraqis standing up so America can stand down. Most people like to know for what they are standing up before they do so. There will, though, be plenty of reason to keep one’s head down.

The 18th anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s gassing of the Kurdish city of Halabja was yesterday. Moreover, the US launched its largest air-strike since the initial invasion yesterday in Samarra (where the Golden Mosque was bombed not long ago). The third anniversary of the US-led attack is Monday. Also, Monday marks the end of the 40-day mourning period to mark the death in AD680 of Imam Hussein, which is a big deal to the Shi’ites. Any of these would be a good excuse for further violence now that there is parliamentary trouble. Mr. Bush’s generals agree; they brought another 700 troops from Kuwait to help keep what peace there is.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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