Saturday, April 22, 2006

Iraq defies "conventional wisdom" again

All right, I don't have time for a real post, but -

Iraq has formed a unity government. Praises be. I'm actually too surprised and happy to use exclamation points - and I don't think they do the event justice in any case.

Jawad al-Maliki, an outspoken Shi'ite and member of the same party as the outgoing al-Jaafari (but apparently a more respected statesman than al-Jaafari), has been named Prime Minister. He hasn't been confirmed yet by the general assembly, but the major parties have backed him, which is a darn sight better than we've seen for months now. Via GatewayPundit, via Yahoo!News:

Parliament elected President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, to a second term and gave the post of parliament speaker to Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni Arab. Al-Mashhadani's two deputies were to be Khalid al-Attiyah, a Shiite, and Aref Tayfour, a Kurd.

The tough-talking al-Maliki was nominated by the Shiites on Friday after outgoing Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari gave up his bid for another term


...at the urging of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Benjamin Franklin of Iraq. I just want to send that man some flowers. Or, as GatewayPundit suggests, a Nobel Peace Prize, for heaven's sake.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So what.
All they've done is replce a PM who the US didn't like with one the US likes. Can we all say puppet. Do you think the people of Iraq are going to have any respect for a PM that is basically a handmaiden of the US. Have you ever heard of Iran and the Shah.
The country is in a state of civil war and the going ons of a bunch of disagreeable leaders encased far from the population under american protection in the green zone is ubnlikely to change the fundamental situation on the ground.
Basically you lot fucked up and Iraq as a nation state is finished. If anything a large part of it will end up as either a protectorate or part of Iran. Well done Bush and Co. They managed to achieve in 3 odd years what Iran couldn't in 7 when Saddam was in charge.