Iraq's prime minister asked Parliament Thursday to approve six new Cabinet members to replace a group which resigned last month on the orders of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Sadr ordered his ministers to quit the government over Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's refusal to call for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal. The anti-American cleric went into hiding in Iran last February when the Baghdad security crackdown was launched.
Hopefully this will help the government get its house in order to cut deals with Sunni Arabs to abandon the jihadis and Baathists, and cut deals with Sadr's boys to stop killing Sunni Arabs.
Of course, even though the Sunni Arabs know that they must join the government, they must now endure attacks by the jihadis who are trying to enforce loyalty through fear:
A bomb hidden in a parked car struck the funeral procession of a Sunni tribal leader who was gunned down earlier Thursday, killing at least 26 mourners as al-Qaida appeared to turn up its campaign of frightening its growing opposition into submission.
I have to wonder how long it will be before Iran's agents start killing Iraqi Shias. During the Iran-Iraq War, the Iranians refrained for a long time from bombarding Basra. But eventually the Iranians decided the residents of Basra were more Iraqi than Shia and so shelled the city freely as the Iranians tried to capture the city.
