Iraq Dangerously Divided

Deep divides halt key Iraq meeting

The Iraqi National Conference which was supposed to choose the leadership to govern Iraq until elections are held in 2005 has been postponed. The Iraqi exiles placed in power by the U.S. have taken over the show despite their lack of credibility among the Iraqi people.

The conference, required by law to take place in July, is now scheduled to start in Baghdad on Aug. 15. Its main purpose is to choose a 100-member council that will serve as the de facto parliament until January elections. Modeled after Afghanistan's loya jirga, the three-day conference was meant to draw in indigenous Iraqi leaders not represented in Iraq's new government.

Instead, it had become an exercise in partisan politics. It has deepened already bitter divisions between ethnic and sectarian groups, especially between exiles and homegrown leaders. Many Iraqis claimed that six political parties, most of them made up of returned exiles, dominated the process and alienated exactly the kind of popular leaders the conference was supposed to attract.

Two major independent players in Iraqi politics, the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the Association for Muslim Scholars made the decision to boycott the Conference because they saw it as being "fixed" by the exile political parties. Those in charge hope that the delay will give them time to convince the hold outs to participate.

But it's going to be a hard sell to those who view the process as tainted by US-backed parties. "The conference was not elected and it had a lot to do with the US administration," said Wamidh Nadhmi, a political science professor at Baghdad University who heads an Arab nationalist group that also decided to boycott. "We want to have a national dialogue, but not under an American umbrella."

I don't see Iraq stabilizing as long as the United States and it's puppets are in charge. Iraq remains a ticking time bomb which I'm sure the dubya mis-administration is hoping won't go off before November.