 | The Politics Blog No-holds-barred commentary on the political arena. |
Then why has his administration started backing away from the Iraqi PM?
CBS has more…
Apparently they won’t a longer vacation?
BAGHDAD - Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab political bloc announced its withdrawal from the government Wednesday, undermining Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s efforts to seek reconciliation among the country’s rival factions. […]Rafaa al-Issawi, a leading member of the Front, said at a news conference in the capital that the bloc’s six Cabinet ministers would submit their resignations later in the day.
Al-Issawi said the decision to pull out from the government followed what he called al-Maliki’s failure to respond to a set of demands put forward by the Accordance Front last week, when it gave the prime minister seven days to meet its demands. The ultimatum expired Wednesday.
Among the demands: a pardon for security detainees not charged with specific crimes, the disbanding of militias and the participation of all groups represented in the government in dealing with security issues.
How big is this faction? Well, it’s the Accordance Front, and they apparently have 44 of the 275 seats in Parliament, so this is a BIG deal since that represents more than 15% saying “buh-bye.”
Folks, they’re done. It doesn’t matter if we’re making gains on the ground. If the government can’t get their act together, there’s really no point beyond making us feel better about being over there.
Key quote…
“We had hoped that the government would respond to these demands or at least acknowledge the failure of its policies, which led Iraq to a level of misery it had not seen in modern history. But its stand did not surprise us at all,” he said, reading from a prepared statement.
Indeed.
Comments Off