Summary
Because of all this, it now looks like there won't be provincial elections this year at all. The ruling bloc of [Shi]'a religious parties and Kurdish warlords are split over the crisis, weakening Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and members of the ruling coalition are trying to patch things up. I don't think they'll succeed. Many Shi'a in the ruling bloc, including ISCl, have criticized the law as divisive, but as Arabs it's hard for them to endorse a Kurdish takeover of Kirkuk. ISCI and the Badr Brigade, its armed wing, are holding parlays to decide what to do. Interestingly, all three members of the ruling presidential council, including [Jalal Talabani], the HP's Hashemi, and ISCI's Adel Abdel Mahdi, voted to veto the law, putting ISCI and the IIP on record as supporting the Kurds. Bad for them politically.
Don't believe it. Sadr's rivals, ISCI, don't have anything like the popular base that [Sadr] has. And underneath Sadr is a volatile mix of neighborhood, local and regional militias, mosques, and economic fiefdoms that won't yield easily to ISCI and Maliki. Because Sadr's forces are dependent on Iran, however, for arms and cash, Iran may be in the driver's seat. Just the other day, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps crowed that the United States has failed to install an anti-Iranian regime in Baghdad, and he's completely right.See the full content of this document
Extract
Iraq Is Poised to Explode
While everyone's looking at Iraq's effect on American politics and whether or not John McCain and Barack Obama are converging on a policy that combines a flexible timetable with a vague, and long-lasting, residual force - let's take a look instead at Iraqi...
See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
