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[RealClearWorld - Articles] RealClearWorld - After Vote, Can Iraq Form a Government?: Accordingly, the Kurdish leadership seeks guarantees regarding the future of Kirkuk, the distribution of oil revenue, the final borders of the Kurdish Regional Government, and the status of the peshmerga fighters. And they are unlikely to compromise much given the impending U.S. withdrawal and the perception that they must get the best deal they can while American forces are still on the ground.

[Dinar Daddy's Tidbits] * Key to Iraqi Stability Lies in Resolution of the Conflicting ...: Much will also depend on the results of the upcoming March 7 nation-wide elections.  Significant divisions have emerged not only between Sunni and Shiite political blocs, but also among the Kurds - with Kurdish Islamist parties as well as the new Gorran Party (a splinter group that broke away from Jalal al-Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) promising to run separately from the previously hegemonic Kurdish List.  If more statewide political alliances emerge across sectarian lines after the elections, the dialectic of Kurdish-Arab disputes might recede a little as well. Alternately, Kurdish parties in stiffer competition with each other may feel less able to compromise on core issues like Kirkuk and control of oil resources in Kurdistan.

[openDemocracy] The softening tone of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq ...: Following his father's death and his appointment as the new leader of Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq or ISCI, Ammar al-Hakim, has made several changes to his party's policy. During a press conference held in Amman on .

[FSI Stanford News, Events, Publications] Iranian Strategy in Iraq: Politics and "Other Means" - FSI Stanford: Badr received training and weapons from the IRGC”QF and Lebanese Hizballah to attack both the Iraqi regime and the Mujahidin”e Khalq Organization (MKO), an Iranian terrorist group. Numerous senior individuals in the Badr Corps during the 1990s play critical logistical roles funneling weapons to militants in Iraq today, including Abu Mustafa al”Sheibani-the first major Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP) smuggler-and Abu Mahdi al”Muhandis, the terrorist and former Badr Corps commander who was elected to the Iraqi parliament before fleeing to Iran.

[Arab News Blog] Arab News Blog » Is US-Iran rivalry Driving the Exclusion of ...: Since the Iraqi constitution specifies that the single party or party-coalition that has the largest number of seats will be given the first shot at forming a government, al-Maliki could only get a second term if Da’wa does unprecedentedly well and outpolls almost all the other Shiite parties together. Worse for Shiite interests, you could imagine a situation where Da’wa gets 65 seats and the Iraqi National Alliance gets 70, but where some other coalition gets 73.

[Investor's Iraq Forum - Iraq Dinar Forum, Iraq Investments, Iraq Stock Exchange, Iraq Bank, Iraq News, Iraqi Dinar] FACTBOX-Who has eye on Iraq prime minister post? - Investor's Iraq ...: His political bloc, the Iraqi National List, has fractured but he formed a new alliance, under the Iraqiya banner, with prominent Sunni politician Saleh al-Mutlaq and Iraq's Sunni Vice President Tarek al-Hashemi. That cross-confessional alliance has been dealt a blow by an independent panel's decision to ban Mutlaq from the election for alleged links to Saddam Hussein's Baath party.

[Inside CFR Events (Audio)] Iraqi Elections: Political Tremors? - Council on Foreign Relations: The United States must be careful not to intrude upon the sense of national sovereignty that began to emerge in Iraq over the past two years. The Iraqis will work much of this out themselves (as they must), and the U.S. should play a supporting role, assisting when asked from behind the scenes, but generally staying out of the ring--lest we bloody our own nose.

[Syria Comment] Syria Comment » Archives » Has Washington Decided to Focus on ...: Unlike in the past two parliamentary elections, al-Maliki declined to join the big coalition of Shiite religious parties, now called the Iraqi National Alliance, which includes the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Sadr Movement. Since the Iraqi constitution specifies that the single party or party-coalition that has the largest number of seats will be given the first shot at forming a government, al-Maliki could only get a second term if Da'wa does .

[Iraq and Gulf Analysis] Reactions to the Occupation of Fakka: A Barometer of Pro-Iranian ...: Meanwhile, the US ambassador in Baghdad, Christopher Hill, sounded bullish about the emerging Iraqi official reaction: “It does speak to the overall view here that they are not going to be pushed around by Iran.” This seemed like an echo of his predecessor, Ryan Crocker, who never tired of telling us that the anti-Iranian stance of Iraqi Shiites during the war in the 1980s constitutes a veritable guarantee against excessive Iranian interference - never mind that Crocker focused his Iraq diplomacy precisely on those Shiites and Kurds that fought on the Iranian side, like Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim and Masud Barzani. But these days Maliki and not the Hakim family seems to represent the focus of attention for the optimists in Washington, and given the slightly more critical perspective on the Iranian operations on the State of Law website, maybe Hill was right?

[Middle East Progress] Middle East Progress » Blog Archive » The Iraqi Provincial Powers Law: The COR approved the law on February 13, but Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi of the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq party (ISCI), and a member of the presidential council delayed its final approval. The presidential council consists of the .

[Pajamas Media] Pajamas Media » The Key to an Honorable Exit from Iraq: He adds that a common misreading of the 2009 provincial elections has it that the federalist idea was undercut by the victory of centralists, a fact owing more to the incompetence of the ISCI, which was effectively branded a handmaiden of Tehran. But it is important to remember that no elections were even held in the key region of Kurdistan or the contentious province of Kirkuk, which together make up a fifth of the entire country.

[Baghdad Bureau] Election: Preliminary Results - At War Blog - NYTimes.com: Tawafiq/Iraqi Accordance Front: A coalition of Sunni Islamist parties dominated by the Iraqi Islamic Party, a long time opponent of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. The main Sunni coalition dominated by Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi and Adnan al-Dulaimi.

Reflected tags on Technorati: Blog, Iraq Constitution, Iran Reviews