.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Born at the Crest of the Empire

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Iraqi no confidence vote

All this debate in the US over benchmarks may soon be moot. I would still put this at the rumor stage, but there does seem to be alot of movement around a no confidence vote on Maliki.

The Top Sunni politician said he would sign on to such a vote if it came from another bloc (Read Shia opposition,) and now we have an Iraqslogger report that the Sadrists are beginning to approach a no confidence proposal.

This could all be high stakes politics trying to exact concessions from Maliki, but it does appear that Sadr has once again headed towards the safety of Iran.

I wrote about the Iraqi politics of this possibility on Sunday, but today, let me ask this question: "What would the US politics look like if a no confidence measure was proposed against Maliki?"

(As of now, the Iraqi parliament is still set to take the entire month of August as a recess.)

2 Comments:

  • If a no-confidence measure passed, or came close, I think that might
    slap a few fence-sitters into consciousness about the futility of the current strategy. The Bushies, I'm sure, would just find in it another reason to keep on doing exactly what they're already doing.

    If the Maliki government comes down, I wonder what could replace it. The Iraqi politicians seem incapable of consensus. Maybe another weak coalition would emerge; maybe a military coup? Maybe a breakup.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:51 PM  

  • Frankly, I would bet that if it's brought, the Maliki supporters would probably deny a quorum as a last step to prevent it passing, but in order to do so, I think they would have to suspend all parliamentary business.

    And, just my opinion, if the MAliki government goes down, I would think that there might not be any official government for awhile.

    Maybe the no confidence folks might form a nationalist coalition (ie non-Iran and non US,) but that would require the difficult melding of the Sunnis and Sadr.

    In the US, a passing no confidence vote would end the game, I would guess, but even a substantially supported failing bill would likely have an impact.

    And if the parliament suspended....

    They're still operationg without a parliamentary speaker, by the way.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 4:06 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home