Rule of Law

The Iraqis are beginning to form a government, with Maliki barely making the deadline for submitting a cabinet. Of the 42 positions, only 29 have permanent members. And key security seats do not yet have permanent ministers. These will be filled later.

Other stories, like this one, have indicated that the Sadrists are unhappy so far.

May they continue to be unhappy. I remain worried that Moqtada al-Sadr is neither dead nor cooling his heels in an Iraqi prison awaiting charges on murder, insurrection, or treason, for his warfare against Iraq and his close relationship with Iran, which has a lot of blood on its hands inside Iraq. But Allawi's backing means that if the Sadrists choose to bolt, Maliki could still have enough support with his bloc's Shias, the Kurds, and the Sunni Arabs.

Remember, too, that the long period of negotiations surely entrenched the role of rule of law. Nobody resorted to storming the palace to resolve the standoff. Politics were the means to resolve the dispute over who governs. We may hyper-ventilate over the supposedly overly partisan environment here, but our complaints reflect just how entrenched rule of law is here. We should be so lucky that the Iraqis learn to complain about attack ads and campaign finance regulations and donor transparency.

This was a long awaited step, but it was a step forward. Let's stick around to help them not stumble.