Iraq's presidential council rejected a measure Wednesday setting up provincial elections, sending it back to parliament in the latest setback to U.S.-backed national reconciliation efforts.
The three-member panel, however, approved the 2008 budget and another law that provides limited amnesty to detainees in Iraqi custody. Those laws will take effect once they are published in the Justice Ministry gazette.
The three laws were approved as a package by the Iraqi parliament on Feb. 13. The step drew praise from the Bush administration, which had sought passage of a provincial powers law as one of 18 benchmarks to promote reconciliation among Iraq's Sunni and Shiite Arab communities and the large Kurdish minority.
"No agreement has been reached in the Presidency Council to approve the provincial elections draft law and it has been sent back to the parliament to reconsider the rejected articles," the council said in a statement.
The bias of the article is astounding. With some laws passing at the national level and other issues being dealt with as if the legislation had already passed, progress is being made despite this delay. And the local reconciliation is going quite well so far.
As for the provincial elections law, it isn't dead. It has been sent back to parliament to address objections by the council. This is their system. How many of our bills go clean from one house as introduced to the president's desk? Why don't we wait and see what the objections are before declaring defeat--again.
I know, I know, a dictator could just decree the law at a whim with a pliant rubber stamp parliament falling all over themselves to oblige. But while democracy may be messy and sometimes slow, it has the advantage of being democratic.
Let the Iraqis enact their laws as their system requires. That's no "setback" as far as I'm concerned.
UPDATE: This sums it up nicely:
While Iraq’s political progress is criticized by many Western political observers in relation to official benchmarks outlined by the Bush Administration and Congress, legislation has begun moving forward, though it often deals with complexities antithetical to quick resolution. In addition, Iraqi lawmakers tend to shun Western-imposed timetables for a variety of reasons, including a sometimes prideful sense of self-determination, the unpredictable process of ethno-sectarian and political compromise, and the practical belief that complex negotiations on long-term solutions should not be rushed to provide short-term political benefit for the US and others. While these attitudes frustrate some Western advisers, others accept and even encourage independence while facilitating progress, and stress the importance of Iraqi solutions to Iraqi problems.
Not enough at the national level has been done yet. But by letting the Iraqis to get there as they see fit (with our gentle prodding, no doubt) we will witness a more durable end point.
