The Sunnis set an end date for the "unity government"

The Sunnis suspend their membership in Iraq's government and threaten to walk away completely in a week if their fairly unmeetable demands are not met.

Iraq's largest Sunni Arab bloc said Wednesday it has suspended its membership in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition government, dealing a serious blow to the Shiite leader's efforts to achieve national reconciliation.

The Iraqi Accordance Front, which has six Cabinet members as well as 44 of parliament's 275 seats, said it was giving al-Maliki a week to meet their demands or it would quit his 14-month-old Cabinet altogether.....

Reading from a prepared statement, Elyan said the front's demands included a pardon for security detainees not charged with specific crimes, a firm commitment by the government to human rights, the disbanding of militias and the inclusion of all parties in the government in dealing with the country's security situation.

If these are the true demands and the threat is sustained, this could be huge, putting to death even the slight hopes of political reconciliation.

The decision also threatened to undermine weeks of behind-the-scene negotiations to form a coalition of moderate parties from all sects — dubbed "the alliance of moderates." So far only two Shiite and two Kurdish parties have signed up and they had been urging Hashemi's moderate Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni Arab group, and independent Shiites to join them.

Wednesday's decision by the Accordance Front signaled that al-Hashemi had opted not to abandon his Sunni allies for the sake of joining the new group, which was to exclude al-Hashemi's militant partners as well as the Sadrists.

If the Sunnis are allowed to withdraw from the government, they will have only two levers of power left, the indirect leverage through the US who desperately needs reconciliation, and violence. Lots of violence.