The Frustrations

Friday on The Diane Rehm Show (NPR), MBC's Nadia Bilbassy declared, "I think every time I come on The Diane Rehm Show I ask the same question.When they going to from the government and, I think, I don't have an answer." Today, at McClatchy Newspaper's Inside Iraq, Laith Hammoudi has posted a comic from Al-Mutamar in which two politicians talk (one says he'll bring the table, the other says he'll bring the chair) while a third person beseeches them to "just meet".



Parliamentary elections in Iraq concluded March 7th. Everything since has been manuevers by Nouri al-Maliki to remain as prime minister. There were the charges of fraud and demands for recounts. The recounts took place (in Baghdad) and no fraud. As with his other roadblocks, they all appeared efforts to draw out the process while he made secret deals.

163 seats are needed to form the government and Nouri teamed State Of Law with the Iraqi National Alliance to reach 159. Though that coalition may or may not hold, he's yet to announce he's reached 163 while Iraqi National Alliance has announced that they are nominating Ibrahim Al Jaafari and Adel Abdul-Mehdi as their picks for prime minister.

Meanwhile Anthony Shadid (New York Times) reports Faris Jassim al-Jabbouri has been assassinated. He is the third member of Iraqi to be assasinated since March.

And there's no formation of government yet.

Supposedly, the Supreme Court signing off on the election results, the (new) Parliament will sit in the next two weeks. Supposedly.

Tomorrow, it's three months since the elections concluded. Some point to the 2005 experience and note the elections were held in December and the prime minister (Nouri) not selected until April. Four months later. By that schedule, they may be on track.

But haven't we heard how much better things allegedly are? Haven't we repeatedly been told the bad days of the 'civil war' are over?

With all the supposed improvements, shouldn't the process have moved a lot smoother and a lot more quickly this time?