Iraq Analysis: Finally, a Government? (Sorry. Too Simple a Question.)

Throughout Thursday, there were high-profile media stories that "Iraq was about to form a Government". After eight months of limbo following March's Parliamentary elections, a deal had been struck where Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki would retain his post. Sunni concerns about representation, as well as the objections of Iyad Allawi, whose supporters won the largest number of seats in March, would be met through a new national and economic security committee.

We refrained from posting the news. Yes, members of Parliament would meet for the second time since March, and this time for longer than 11 minutes. Yes, there would be movement towards a national administration, at least with the invitation to al-Maliki to try and from a Cabinet. But, no, this is not "forming a Government". This is only one more political manoeuvre which may or may not produce alliances which tenuously allow al-Maliki to claim power.

And so it has proved. If you can get past the rather silly diversion this morning linking Baghdad to Tehran, with even established analysts following for the bogeyman story of "Victory for Iran", you will get the relevant, continuing story of the divisions amongst Iraqi parties. The New York Times summarises:

Only three hours into a parliamentary session called on Thursday to begin the process of approving an agreement on a new unity government, members of an alliance led by the former prime minister, Ayad Allawi, walked out in protest.

While the walkout did not immediately scuttle the agreement, which was reached only the night before, it was a stark illustration of the fragility of a broad coalition that was not yet 24 hours old, and was a portent of the political struggles ahead....

Members of Mr. Allawi’s bloc walked out after failing to force a vote on demands that included a release of detainees. They also sought to reverse a decision that disqualified three of the alliance’s candidates on the grounds that they were loyal to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. Both are contentious issues among the country’s Sunni Arabs.

“We can’t go on with a government that begins with a violation of its agreements,” said Haydar al-Mullah, an Allawi supporter. 

(See Juan Cole for more on the reasons for the walkout.)

There's only one mis-step in that description, but it is a significant one. There was never "a broad coalition". There was only sufficient agreement between al-Maliki's backers, Allawi's supporters, and representatives of the Shi'a Sadrists and the Kurdish parties to permit the Parliamentary session. Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurd would sit together in the Assembly, but attendance in itself does not equal consensus.

So how far did they get? Well, the Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani was re-elected President, although he failed to win the required two-thirds vote at the first attempt and got in through the "fall-back" of a majority --- 195 of the 325 members --- on a second ballot. Osama al-Najafi, a Sunni from the Allawi alliance, was elected Speaker of Parliament, but he joined Allawi in the walk-out protest. (He later returned to oversee the vote for President.)

And late Thursday night, Talabani finally designated al-Maliki as the nominee for Prime Minister, giving him 30 days to form a Government.

That may be sufficient for The New York Times to serve as cheerleader --- "For the United States, the agreement reflected the best case — if not a perfect one — for an Iraq still scarred by the violence unleashed by Saddam Hussein’s overthrow seven and a half years ago" --- but in reality, it only means that al-Maliki is formally in the same situation that he occupied last week, last month, and indeed last spring. He was always more likely than Allawi, given the power politics in Iraq rather than the numbers from the March election, to find the leverage to get a Government, but he has never been in a strong enough position to deliver that without a series of complicated compromises and concessions.

So the broad issues remain. Will al-Maliki forge a deal through agreement with the followers of the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, now the second most prominent Shi'a player after the would-be Prime Minister? Will Allawi join the Government or at least accept it? Will Sunni parties --- while Allawi leads a coalition that includes them, he is Shi'a --- feel they have sufficient representation and protection in the "new Iraq"?

No, folks, despite the headlines this morning, there are no answers, only the persistence of those very big questions.