All of these various issues have created a dangerous situation in Iraq. The country is no longer able to be ruled by consensus and the political situation looks shakier than ever. No major decisions have been made in Parliament over the past few months. In the past it was clear which corner each bloc was going to fight from, and what for. But now politics in Iraq appears to have been rendered more meaningless than ever.
Last month the Iraqi Parliament published the results of the first half of its four-year term. The data shows that 275 laws were discussed but only 87 were approved. There are 188 draft laws that just need to be voted upon to put them into action; but nobody wants to do that.
“This National High Council is needed to activate the stalled legislation,” Mohammad al-Lakash, an MP for the mostly Shiite Muslim Muwatin, or Citizen, bloc, told NIQASH; his bloc supports the idea of the council. “The victories of Iraq’s security forces need to be supported by the politicians. And the politicians’ conflicts need to be resolved. This Council can help work on that.”
Having said all that, negotiations on the National High Council for Strategic Policies have only just begun. It is still hard to know exactly where each of the political blocs really stands on the issue.
“We will only know this once the Council is officially created,” suggests Ziad Ahmad, a local political analyst. “One would expect that some parties are going to say the new Council is unconstitutional and that others will criticize it as just another way of maintaining Iraq’s sectarian system.”
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