Senators seek regime change in Iraq

Washington Post:

Declaring the government of Iraq "non-functional," the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that Iraq's parliament should oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his cabinet if they are unable to forge a political compromise with rival factions in a matter of days.

"I hope the parliament will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister and government," Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said after a three-day trip to Iraq and Jordan.

Levin's statement, the most forceful call for leadership change in Iraq from a U.S. elected official, comes as about two dozen lawmakers are traveling to Iraq during Congress's August break to glean firsthand assessments before receiving a progress report next month from Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander there, and Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador.

Not every Democrat has come back from Iraq supporting a drawdown of U.S. forces in the coming months, as party leaders have advocated. Staking out positions that could complicate efforts to achieve party unity in September, a few Democratic lawmakers have returned expressing support for a continued troop presence. One of them, Rep. Brian Baird (Wash.), said yesterday that he will no longer vote for binding troop withdrawal timelines.

Levin's comments to reporters followed the release of a joint statement with the second-ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, Sen. John W. Warner (Va.), which was pessimistic about Iraq's political future. The statement referred to a round of recent meetings between Maliki, who is backed by President Bush, and Iraqi political leaders as "the last chance for this government to solve the Iraqi political crisis."

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While Maliki may be ineffective in terms of the political dynamics of Iraq, I think his ineffectiveness may be partly a structural problem with the Iraqi government. Recall how many weeks it took them to select Maliki. In that entire time there was no parliamentary vote on leadership as the parties maneuvered to see who would be the leader. There has never been a no confidence vote. Instead one faction or another resigns or walks away. It seems to be government by the passive aggressive with each trying to out passive aggressive the other rather than have a show down vote. It does seem somewhat ironic that Senators would be lecturing anyone on the pace of the legislative process.

Getting back to the reason for the glacial pace of action by the Iraqi government, it relates to provisions built into the Iraqi constitution to protect minorities from abuse by the majority. It requires super majorities to do anything of consequence, thus long periods of negotiations are required just to bring a matter to a vote that has a chance of passing. That should sound familiar to senators.