Could there be a ray of hope, at last, in Iraq? (from CNN)
Iraq finally has names for its top jobs — more than four months after its historic general election. Jawad al-Maliki was asked to be prime minister-designate and form a new government at the apparent end of a political impasse. An historic meeting of parliament also named a president and speaker.
Not only were the Shiites able to come up with a satisfactory nominee with al-Maliki, the re-elected President immediately designated him Prime Minister, opening the doors at last to that elusive “unity government”:
A top Sunni Arab leader endorsed al-Maliki’s selection.
“We will deal with Mr. [al-]Maliki and we will work together in order to form a unity government,” said Tariq al-Hashimi — secretary-general of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest party in the most powerful Sunni Arab political bloc — the Iraqi Accord Front.
The main Kurdish grouping has not commented so far but independent Kurdish politician Mahmoud Othman welcomed al-Maliki’s nomination, Reuters reported.
And from the AP (via YahooNews):
U.S. and Iraqi officials hope that a national unity government representing Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds will be able to quell both the Sunni-led insurgency and bloody Shiite-Sunni violence that has raged during the political uncertainty. If it succeeds, it could enable the U.S. to begin withdrawing its 133,000 troops.
Yes indeed – all of that would be fine. Oh, they soooooo need to pull this together.
Polimom is cautiously upbeat – not because I don’t think it’s great news (it IS!), but because the situation in Iraq has been so bad, for such a long time, that it’s hard to be euphorically optimistic. (Sad, isn’t it?)
Still, while I embrace this as a hopeful sign of real progress, John Kerry seems to be either mounting a political grandstand, or jumping the gun a bit (from the CNN story):
Sen. John Kerry said Saturday the United States should impose a May 15 deadline on the Iraqi parliament to form “an effective unity government … or we will immediately withdraw our military.” The Democrat also called for “a schedule for withdrawing American combat forces by year’s end,” saying that doing so will “empower the new Iraqi leadership.” Kerry’s comments came on the 35th anniversary of his appearance as a Vietnam veteran on Capitol Hill urging an end to that war.
Maybe we could let them actually form up before hitting them with deadlines and ultimatums…?