Iraq and Afghanistan

At the end of a tumultuous four days, the National Conference managed to appoint a 100 member Congress to oversee the operation of the interim government until elections next January. The process was hectic; many threatened to walk out. But in the end they all stayed and acquiesced in the result. It was a compromise list agreed on by the leading parties and factions in the country. The chief negotiators included the Shiite Dawa Party (actually there are several such parties, but at the time of the defeat of Saddam's forces, they were thought to represent most of the country's Shiites), and the Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Sunni Islamic Party, the two Kurdish parties, the former exiles of the Iraqi National Congress and Allawi's Iraqi National Accord. The smaller groups felt they were ignored. The final result did not have the promised 25% female membership because the tribal sheikhs would not appoint women in their slots. Yet, by and large, it appears to be a fairly representative group.

I assume now that it has done its job, the National Conference will go out of existence, or at least become inactive. Its one other action was to try to solve the Najaf problem. After an initial rejection, it appeared as though they had a deal, but then within hours this too fell apart. Shells are again bursting in Najaf and the Americans are bombing both Najaf and Falluja. The breakdown may have been partly due to the Interim Government's stiffening of its demands on al-Sadr. They demanded an immediate disbanding of the Mahdi Army throughout the country. Again, intransigence seems to mark the approach of Allawi and his friends — and the American forces are expected to back up this policy. Suggesting that a less extreme, more temporizing policy would work better is, of course, easy to do at a distance. In any event, we are obviously not out of the woods in many areas of the country, particularly those heavily influenced by the Mahdi Army.

Yet, the Conference was held. A Congress was "elected" by acclamation (actually an appointive process). These steps had to be accomplished. Whether they are enough remains at issue.