Iraq's Sunni dash Bush's hopes of breakthrough

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Financial Times
August 27 2007 19:34

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Several Sunni politicians said on Monday that they were not convinced Sunday’s deal would bring any concrete progress, suggesting that Mr Hashemi might be hard pressed to persuade the rest of his coalition of the merits of his deal.

Khalaf al-Alayan, and MP with the Front, was quoted by Reuters as saying that Mr Hashemi had dealt with the four other leaders in his capacity as ”vice-president and not as leader of the Front”.

He said the government lacked ”credibility” and that the Front would not return to the government until all its demands had been met.

Mr Maliki and his allies will also have difficulty winning over the radical Sadrist movement, whose membership is strongly opposed to any return of former Baathists to public life.

The agreement with Mr Hashemi may indicate that Mr Maliki’s government believes it can scrape together the majority it needs to pass laws in parliament, even over the objections of the Sadrists and some Sunnis.

A simple majority would certainly be easier to obtain than the agreement of all of Iraq’s major political forces, but it would also be less effective at reducing support for anti-government militants and ending the country’s sectarian violence.


http://www.ft.com/cms/s/9daa838c-54bb-11dc-890c-0000779fd2ac.html