Posted on 04/20/2006 3:18:26 PM PDT by jmc1969
Amidst rumors of a coup, the prime minister may finally be willing to step aside.
More than four months after the election, a shift in the position of incumbent prime minister may finally open the way for the creation of a new Iraqi government.
Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari announced Thursday that he would refer his nomination for a second term back to the United Iraqi Alliance, the dominant Shi'ite bloc in the new legislature. That opens the way for the Alliance to select a new candidate and break the deadlock created by the refusal of the Kurdish, Sunni and secular blocs, backed by the U.S., to accept a second Jaafari term.
The decisive intervention may have been the reported signal from, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's leading Shi'ite spiritual authority.
Sistani may have been spurred to intervene by ominous talk in Baghdad that a group of secular, once-exiled politicians previously favored by the U.S. were planning to seize power and seek U.S. backing. Former U.S.-appointed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi suggested on Iraqi TV last weekend that Iraqi political leaders, despite being marginalized by the Iraqi electorate, might have to create an extra-constitutional “emergency government.”
One of his key allies, acting speaker of parliament Adnan Pachachi, told reporters that such a government would not be based either on the constitution or on the election results — results, he claimed, which didn't necessarily reflect the true will of the Iraqi people . Such a move would likely provoke a violent Shi'ite reaction, if not full-scale civil war, which the moderate Sistani would be anxious to avoid.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
A coup would not receive US backing.
Offically you are correct, unoffically you are totally wrong.
However, the point is moot now that Jaafari has stepped down.
When did he officially step down?
I wonder what the fallout from this will be and if it is our best interests for him to step down. Opinions please.
Today Jaafari punted the decision back to the UIA for PM at the demand of Sistani this opens the UIA up to make another choice. However, it is quite possible they could choose even worse then Jaafari, but I don't suspect they will.
The political process in Iraq has been stopped for months because Jaafari would not step down, now that he has there is at least a chance it will go forward.
Cool, yesterday I heard there was no way he was leaving.
Ah, but that was yesterday, and the country is Iraq! :)
No way! Bush would never go for it.
What I have heard from behind the scenes is that another several months of no government in Iraq and the US would have been willing to sit back and let the pro-Iranian Shia be kicked out. The US no longer considers Sadr and a number of others like Jaafari in the UIA to be democratic or willing to allow for future free and fair elections.
There isn't democracy as you or I know it in Iraq, the elections in the south of Iraq were as rigged as the Iranian election. The US knows it and has used the evidence they collected of the militias and Iranians rigging the vote to force the UIA to promise to make a government of national unity.
Right now the political process finally has a chance to move forward if the UIA makes a decient choice of PM. If the UIA choses someone as bad or worse then Jaafari the political process as we know it will be stuck in limbo and every second the political process is stuck in limbo with no government is a second Iraq moves closer to the edge of the cliff.
A coup would be far preferable to Iraq decending into endless civil war and chaos. Allawi actually does believe in democracy, but at the same time believes the Iraqi state is on the edge of the cliff. It is now up to the UIA to choose what future Iraq will have.
yes, but I suspect he will try to cut some deal again to disarm his militia and then renig on it several months later like last time.
He never disarmed to begin with.
He said he would after the August 2004 Najaf crisis and he agreed to go along with a government sponsered weapons for cash deal, but that was short lived.
The Shia, Sunnis and Kurds must learn to get along. I'm glad that finally the log jam is going away.
2/3 majority to form a government is a very high bar they set for themselves.
It's going to be interesting to see just who they put up for the position of PM. I have a feeling that one of the things that will come out of all of this is a weakening of the position of PM and a strengthening of the other leadership positions.
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