Mashhadani vows new bloc will win speaker post
Former Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani said a new political slate, the National Dialogue bloc, would move toward solving the political crisis in Parliament, Shabab al-Iraq reported Monday.
The Iraqi Parliament has been without a speaker since Mashhadani stepped down in December. Lawmakers have since been unable to find a consensus candidate.
Mashhadani said the new bloc consists of 25 lawmakers from three separate parties, the National Dialogue Front, the National Dialogue Council and the Democratic Gathering. He said the new slate would strengthen those parties following their departure from the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front, adding that the new slate would move for the speaker position.
The IAF did not take the necessary steps toward political reform, Mashhadani said, pointing to the ongoing crisis over the speaker post. A power-sharing agreement in the Iraqi government awards the post to a Sunni, which the IAF sees as indication the position should go to one of its members.
Mashhadani said several lawmakers were pushed to join the new slate out of frustration with the political process, adding that the National Dialogue list would work with others in Parliament to find a new speaker.
State of Law list allies with parties in Babil
The State of Law slate of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced in a news conference it had formed an alliance with three lists in Babil province, Sot al-Iraq reported Monday.
State of Law won major concessions in the January provincial elections, though the margin of victory suggested several parties would need to form ruling coalitions. Ali al-Basri with State of Law said his slate was negotiating with the Iraqi List of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and several others.
Basri said the coalition would take 17 of the 30 provincial council seats in Babil. Sot al-Iraq reported the rival Shiite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which won five provincial council seats, was excluded from the State of Law-backed alliance.
The alliance, however, has not discouraged or coerced any of the other parties to join its ranks, and Basri added that the door was open to all parties to join the ruling bloc in Babil.
The U.S. troop withdrawal and Iraq's responsibilities
The Iraqi people were not surprised when U.S. President Barack Obama announced his decision to end combat operations in Iraq by August 2010, Kitabat reported Monday.
The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 caused national destruction and created a security vacuum that resulted in the death of countless Iraqis. Washington, however, now claims it has achieved its goals in Iraq.
Moreover, the Obama announcement for a drawdown of American forces to around 50,000 was an attempt to convince the Iraqi people his administration was saving the war-torn country.
This, if anything, shows how narrow-minded Washington is as the Obama administration has now set its eyes on Afghanistan, leaving Iraq to clean up America's mess, according to the report.
The Iraqi government, however, has to find a way to provide for its own security and work toward national unity, a tough goal considering the divisive political climate.
The Iraqi military, for its part, needs greater troop numbers and better equipment before it can act as a stand-alone force, the report said.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is left with fixing American mistakes made from its heavy-handed tactics in Iraq. This policy has left a countless number of weapons in the hands of the people, something the report said is the cause of much of the national instability.
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(Edited by Daniel Graeber)
