Big Iraq news (or maybe not)
Boy, the headline sounds alot better than the story.
The headline is that the Iraqi parliament dislodged the logjam by horsetrading and passing three very contentious bills together: a budget (disputes over the Kurdish share,) a Federalism bill (allows the Shia to form a S. Iraq superstate,) and an amnesty bill(freeing thousands of Sunnis from custody.)
In theory, this could be big news, but I have that creeping feeling.
We'll have to wait and see.
Later: Juan Cole has some analysis.
The headline is that the Iraqi parliament dislodged the logjam by horsetrading and passing three very contentious bills together: a budget (disputes over the Kurdish share,) a Federalism bill (allows the Shia to form a S. Iraq superstate,) and an amnesty bill(freeing thousands of Sunnis from custody.)
In theory, this could be big news, but I have that creeping feeling.
The parliamentary success was clouded because many of the most contentious details were simply postponed, raising the possibility that the accord could again break into rancorous factional disputes in future debates on the same issues.
We'll have to wait and see.
Later: Juan Cole has some analysis.
posted by mikevotes at
9:35 PM
3 Comments:
The Iraqi governmental nightmare -- as with everything in modern Iraq -- has it's origins in the imperial dictates of Bush/Cheney during the first year or two of occupation.
We force a "sovereign" government on them before they were ready and which was not exactly an Iraqi grassroots movement. We force legislation upon this mal-formed government before they were ready and which was window dressing at best and destabilizing at worst.
We have prodded the Iraqi government to perform tricks and pantomimes to the drumbeat of the American election cycle. (Talk about your artificial time-lines!) As a result we have ensured a dysfunctional client state in Iraq, and a convenient fear-club for war-lovers and imperialists to politically manipulate at home.
By
-epm, at 8:01 AM
I'm going to disagree somewhat. This got pushed through because Sunni and Shia leaders were threatening to dissolve the government if some of this wasn't passed.
Agreed, this has the smell of a forced benchmark, and part of that is there, but alot of this comes from the Iraqis themselves threatening the ruling coalition.
By
mikevotes, at 8:52 AM
Fair enough.
By
-epm, at 3:12 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home