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Monday, March 28, 2005

Juan Cole v. Star Tribune

Posted by: Hammer / 8:07 PM

The Star Tribune reported yesterday via AP:
Iraqi government likely to be formed within days

The Shiite Muslim likely to be Iraq's next prime minister said Saturday that the country's long-awaited government could be formed within days, an accomplishment that would mark the end of nearly two months of negotiations after the nation's first free elections in half a century.

Iraqi politicians, however, have been reporting that they were near a deal for at least a month.

On the other hand, Juan Cole opines:
There seems little likelihood of a government being formed before the beginning of April. Two sticking points in the negotiations are the role of Islam in the new government and who gets the ministry of petroleum. The Kurds want it, as a way of getting hold of the city of Kirkuk, which they covet. The Shiites want it, because they have the huge Rumaila oil field in the south. In fact, there have been several demonstrations in Basra recently by the Rumaila oil rig workers demanding that the post go to a Shiite from the deep south. The director of the South Oil Co., which is theoretically government-owned, appears to just be doing as he pleases down in Basra without much consulting the "government" in Baghdad.
The difference between Cole's view and the AP article is mostly in the headline. The Strib/AP piece does a good job of providing the context -- a government is close to being formed, we are told, but we've told that before. Repeatedly.

I don't see a three-fifths compromise in the works. It's quite simple, in fact, to count a man as 3/5ths of a person. How, on the other hand, do you base a government on 3/5ths of the Koran? What, in other words, would a compromise look like? Either the new government predicates itself on Islamic law and tradition or it does not. I don't see a third way and I don't see any urgency to compromise.

Fortunately for Iraqis and Americans, I have no capacity for divination.

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