Slow Dissolution

Looks like the Iraq government is dissolving .... again .....

Juan Cole:

The project of a national unity government was pushed in spring of 2006 by the US ambassador of that time, Zalmay Khalilzad, as a way of mollifying the Sunni Arabs, who had been left out in the cold during the government of Ibrahim Jaafari. Jaafari's Shiite United Iraqi Alliance had a simple majority in parliament in 2005. It only achieved about 46% in the December, 2005, elections, however, and Jaafari's successor, Nuri al-Maliki, at first needed at least 15 or so supporters from other lists to retain his majority. As time went on, al-Maliki lost the support of the Fadhila Party (a splinter of the Sadrist movement popular in Basra and loyal to Ayatollah Muhammad al-Yaqubi), which has 15 seats in parliament. Then the Sadrists or followers of Muqtada al-Sadr (32 seats) withdrew from his government, pulling their ministers. Now the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front has departed.

There is no longer a national unity government.

Al-Maliki has not only made no progress toward national reconciliation with the Sunni Arabs, he has now lost the few Sunni Arabs willing to cooperate closely with him.

The 'benchmarks' not only have not been met, but the situation is going backwards from where it was in January.

I'm glad someone keeps track of the players because I can't.

Government members have come and gone before. Who knows what this will mean in the short term or whether it's the end of al Maliki. What we can say is that anarchy continues in Iraq, and not just militarily. The government is in disarray and unable to function. For all practical purposes, there is no government but merely figureheads who depend on the U.S. military to maintain and office.