The scruffily bearded guy is back on stage

The scruffily bearded guy is on stage again and appears to be getting ready to sing, so the opera buffa, “Iraqiya Sconfitta” is entering its final act.  Like the rest of the plot, this act promises to be a bit ragged, with only some of the ministers named and others held over in caretaker roles, a procedure that sounds like a novelty to me. Why, however, the New York Times claims

For the first time in Iraq’s recent history the proposed government represents all main ethnic and sectarian factions, with participation from parties supported by Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds

is a mystery: the author must have slept through the last seven years of admittedly difficult to follow acts, since all those groups have been represented in the various incarnations of Iraqi governments since 2003.

So it looks like a big, if not exactly a grand, coalition, with power-sharing at the heart of it despite Reidar Visser’s well-articulated objections. Alas, poor Reidar, Iraq is more infected with sectarian and ethnic sentiment than you would like, but it is nevertheless good to see the prospect of a new government forming, now that some of Iraqiya’s principal spear carriers have been liberated from the dark prison of de-Ba’athification.

I know, and appreciate, two of the three (Salih al Mutlaq and Zafir al Ani)–neither strikes me as a threat to the democratic regime in Iraq, even if their rather virulent public anti-Americanism is tempered only by whispered entreaties for the United States to fix Iraq before leaving. If Salih becomes Foreign Minister, as is rumored, we are guaranteed a more interesting and amusing time at international events than is common these days.  I remember asking him a year ago whether he could envisage joining a Maliki government, because a member of his coterie had told me “absolutely not!”  Salih said nothing but raised an eyebrow in a signal of possibility that was worthy of Groucho Marx.

As I have noted previously, the Ashura holy day passed relatively quietly, which is certainly a good omen. If Maliki can get his new government delivered to parliament by Christmas, that would be even better.  When it comes to current wars, Iraq is looking like something much closer to success than Afghanistan, even if it is difficult to keep any significant number of American troops in Iraq past 2011. Americans will certainly be glad to welcome them home.