Samarra Shrine Destroyed

Would-be emperors fiddle...


AP Photo/Akram Saleh, Pool

While rome burns...


AP Photo/Hameed Rasheed

The bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra is the most graphic example of why a political vacuum is unsustainable. Yet this is exactly the policy America and their stooges are currently following. Their whole effort in the negociations following the Iraqi election has been to use the stalemate built into the current constitution to force a minority government over the majority winners of the election. To quote AP:

prospects for a broad-based coalition taking power soon appeared in doubt after officials from the Shiite and Kurdish blocs told The Associated Press that talks between the two groups had revealed major policy differences.

The political parties have decided to negotiate a program for the new government before dividing up Cabinet posts—a step that itself is also bound to prove contentious and time-consuming.

Leaders from Iraq's Shiite majority oppose a Kurdish proposal to set up a council to oversee government operations, the officials said. Shiites also reject a Kurdish proposal for major government decisions to be made by consensus among the major parties rather than a majority vote in the Cabinet.

Shiites believe the Kurdish proposals would dilute the power that Shiites feel they earned by winning the biggest number of seats in Dec. 15 parliamentary elections. But while Shiite parties control 130 of the 275 seats, that is not enough to govern without partners.

"Some parties are trying to undermine efforts to form a new government," Shiite politician Ammar Toamah said. "These blocs should not necessarily participate in government."

He also said the Kurdish coalition, which controls 53 seats, was pushing for a role for a secular group led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a Shiite whose party won 25 seats.

So the Kurds want to shoe horn Allawi into power while the Shia want to use their election mandate to control the government. America, in the meantime, is backing and encouraging the Kurds by insisting on a 'unity' government. The result, more dithering. Kurds are encouraged to keep blocking while the Shi'a parties will dig their heels in to prevent themselves being turned back into a minority. This whole process is unworkable and getting more irrelevant by the day. While these negociations are conducted in comfortable offices the real Iraq is falling apart.

There is a need for a radical change of direction. American presence in Iraq should end before more Samarras happen and the people take matters into their own hands. The political negociations should then be left to parties who would have to come to an agreement before the 130,000 American soldiers that guard their tiny patch of earth they call a government leave.