Iraq...Still a ticking bomb

The violence and anarchy continue in Iraq and so does the religious and ethnic hate and distrust. The elections have done nothing to improve the situation. The new, and incomplete, Iraqi cabinet is hostage to post invasion conditions and as a result unlikely to be a stabilizing force.

After fasting - or watching non-stop squabbling - for almost three months since the January 30 elections, Iraqis finally got their onion: a new cabinet no one likes (except the Kurds). Shi'ite Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari didn't get what he wanted. No wonder: the Washington/Green Zone is wary of him. The Sunnis are threatening to walk out of the government altogether. Approved by 180 parliamentarians against five, with a significant 90 absences, this is not even a full cabinet: Jaafari was unable t o appoint permanent ministers to the Oil, Defense, Electricity, Industry and Human Rights ministries. All posts are meant to be filled by May 7.

The slime floats to the top

But for the moment, even more alarmingly, the acting minister is none other than the unsinkable convicted fraudster, former Pentagon darling and purported Iranian agent Ahmad Chalabi. "For the moment" could last a lifetime: Chalabi - who has been oiling his connections with leading Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for a long time - will undoubtedly waste no time filling the Oil Ministry with his Iraqi National Congress cronies. Not a few in Baghdad firmly believe that the Green Zone may have had a perverse hand on his appointment.

Planting the seeds of civil war

To say that Sunnis are angry would be an understatement. Powerful Sunni tribal Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawer, one of the vice presidents, is threatening that all Sunnis may withdraw from the government - because this cabinet lineup is not what they had agreed to with Jaafari. No wonder: Sunnis wanted to finish off once and for all with de-Ba'athification, and insisted on a very firm Arab nationalist government.

Shi'ites from religious parties would never agree to these demands. Some Sunnis have already pulled out, such as the Front of Sunni Arab Blocs, which includes the Front of National Blocs and the National Dialogue Council. The Sunnis wanted seven ministries, especially Defense (they will probably get it; Jaafari is the acting minister). An alert Sistani was wise enough to have pressed for 10 ministries for the Sunnis.

The political situation in Iraq is not unlike the power struggle in the Republican party; an attempt to please both the theocrats and the secular feudalists. The wild card in Iraq has always been the Kurds.

One fears for Jaafari: he still has an uphill negotiation battle ahead. Some powerful Sunni tribal sheikhs and religious leaders have been fiercely denouncing "an occupation of Kurds and Shi'ites". Only a month ago, Sheikh Abu D'ham was saying that "the Kurds are asking for Kirkuk. Later on they will start asking for Baghdad. It was Saddam Hussein who gave the Kurds too much, more than they deserved."

Kurds may have received too much once again. They keep Hoshyar Zebari as foreign minister, an affable, American-approved Iraqi face to the world, and they have important positions in ministries such as as Planning and Development Cooperation (Barham Salih), Communications (Jwan Maasoum, a woman), Labor and Social Affairs (Idris Hadi) and Water Resources (Abdul Latif Rashi). Shi'ites predictably got several important ministries: Interior (Baqir Jabbur), Finance (Ali Allawi), Agriculture (Ali al-Bahadli), Justice (Abdul Hussein Shandal) and Transport (Salam al-Malik). A welcome development is that the Science and Technology Ministry is attributed to Bassima Boutros, a Christian woman.

Civil war is inevitable

It is not difficult to believe that Sunni Arab public opinion has not by any measure started to believe in the political process. It's true that many powerful Sunni Arabs, at least for the moment, are making a distinction between terror and resistance. But the moment the majority of Sunni Arab public opinion equates illegal occupation to the Shi'ites, Kurds and the political process, civil war is inevitable. There's nothing this hostage cabinet can do about it. We're not there yet, but it's getting closer by the minute.

What's that ticking sound I hear in Iraq?