Making Iraq Work

Forming a government from scratch wouldn’t be easy under the most peaceful circumstances, and Iraq is the opposite of that. Unfortunately, its nascent parliament doesn’t have the luxury of time.

Members of the Iraqi National Assembly who were elected Jan. 30 finally managed Sunday to select a speaker of their assembly, and they were expected today to name a president, Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, and two vice presidents, nearly completing their multiethnic government leadership. The new speaker is a Sunni Arab, interim Industry Minister Hachim Hassani. The legislature chose a Shiite and a Kurd as Hassani’s two deputies.

The top post in the government -- prime minister -- is expected to go eventually to Ibrahim Jafari, a selection signaled weeks ago. Jafari is a Shiite Arab, the majority group in Iraq. He would then form a Cabinet.

The process has been slowed by bare-knuckles bargaining among factions wanting to control the security services and the flow of oil. A mid-August deadline for producing the first draft of a new constitution remains in doubt.

If forming a central government is proving difficult, reports from some of Iraq’s new provincial governing councils is even worse. Today’s Times story by Edmund Sanders tells us of councils that haven’t met for fear of assassination, others locked in ethnic enmity and some factions taking up arms to challenge rivals’ legitimacy.

That adds to the urgency of getting a central government organized and speaking with a single voice. Control of Iraq’s finances and services remains centralized, but failed provincial councils would feed instability.

Participation by Sunni Arabs, the minority that largely controlled the government under Saddam Hussein, remains shaky. The choice of Hassani as speaker was meant to draw more Sunnis into politics, after their boycott of the elections left them with only 17 of the 275 seats in parliament. Hassani, however, is controversial among Iraqis for remaining inside the previous U.S.-installed interim government. Many also consider him suspect for his secularity and U.S. education.

Iraq’s insurgents are mostly Sunni. The powerful Sunni clergy is divided over participation in government, with some members last week urging a greater role and others repeating their calls for a boycott.

The delays and internal bickering in both Baghdad and the provinces discourage those hoping for a date when U.S. troops might begin leaving Iraq and encourage those who seek disruption. More than 40 U.S. soldiers were injured Saturday when insurgents launched a sophisticated attack on the notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. No prisoners escaped, but the battle lasted for hours and marked a new willingness by guerrillas to attack troops head-on. Four U.S. troops died in clashes Tuesday.

Iraq’s existence as a unified country is not assured. Those who claim to be Iraqis first and Shiites, Sunnis or Kurds second have much to prove in the coming weeks.