Shiite politics unravelling Iraq

The WaPo has a pretty big story outlining some of the growing fractures between the major Shia groups and the Iraqi government. The headlining revelation is that the SIIC Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi tendered his resignation last week in the wake of the Askariyah mosque bombing.

Abdul Mahdi is the top SIIC politician who has been rumored to be the PM candidate in many of the plots, both legitimate and coup, designed to remove Maliki as PM.

Combining this with the Mahdi withdrawal from the government, and now from the parliament, there can be no argument that Maliki holds any significant support from within the Shia bloc.

The Maliki government is effectively over. Without support from at least one of the major Shia blocs, there will be no legislation (no benchmarks) passed at all.

Now the struggle for power will shift away from the PM's office to intraShia politics and the increasingly violent street battles between the Mahdi, Badr, and the infiltrated security forces in Nasiriyah, Amarah, and Basra.

This also marks a declining influence of top Shia cleric al Sistani.