Iraq: over one hump

So finally today, 66 days after the January 30 election, the members of the National Assembly elected that day were able to reach agreement on an interim President, veteran PUK leader Jalal Talabani, and two Vice-President, slippery Shiite pol Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Sunni stuffed shirt (okay, stuffed jallabiya) Ghazi Yawar.
This article by Ed Wong on the NYT website today gives some interesting details about the Assembly session, including this:

new problems erupted at the assembly meeting, as many Shiite members called for the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to be dissolved as soon as Mr. Talabani and his deputies were sworn in. Shiite officials have been particularly critical of Mr. Allawi’s rule, saying he has brought back into the government former senior members of the Baath Party who played key roles in oppressing ordinary Iraqis, especially Shiites and Kurds. The debate today foreshadowed what many people see as a potentially harsh purging of former Baathists from the government once the new rulers are installed.

Wong reports that interim human rights minister Bakhtiar Amin had insisted that Saddam Hussein and his imprisoned cronies be “forced” to watch a televised version of the proceedings inside their jail cells over near Baghdad airport:

“I thought it was a very sensible idea for Saddam and his aides to watch with their own eyes Jalal Talabani, who had been excluded from all amnesties issued by Saddam, being elected today as president,” Mr. Amin said.

Wong also hinted strongly that Yawar (who had previously been named by Paul Bremer as one of the two key deputies to Iyad Allawi) might not be the best person through whom the new Transitional Government leadership could reach out to the Sunni Arabs… On the other hand, the “evidence” he adduces for that comes from disappointed candidate Adnan Pachachi, so it’s not clear how much value to give to his view.
The appointment of the three-person Presidential Council was a major “hump” in the road to government formation, since it required the Bremer-imposed two-thirds super-majority. That hump has now been passed. The Prez Council will now, I think, present its nominations for the prime minister and other ministers to the Assembly, where only a simple majority is required for passage.
That may happen as early as Thursday.
But will Iraq then get a Transitional Government that is both domestically legitimate and empowered (by the occupying force) to start ruling the country? That is really the question.
Until that happens, I think I’ll keep the “Democracy Denied in Iraq” counter going.
By the way, in that AP/Yahoo story I linked to above, there’s a fascinating little quote from Talabani that I consider to be a hopeful sign:

Speaking after his election, Talabani … made a gesture toward those who side with the insurgency.
“As for the Iraqis who are carrying weapons out of patriotic and anti-occupation motives, those people are our brothers and it is possible to talk with them and to reach a solution,” Talabani said.
He added that his government would work to provide security so that U.S.-led coalition forces “could return home after the completion of building (Iraqi) armed forces that are capable of finishing off terrorism.”

In other words, Talabani is declaring that those “insurgents” (a completely anti-political term that US spinmeisters have tried to apply to militants from a range of different political orientations) whose motivations are “patriotic and anti-occupation”– as opposed to being anti-Shiite or anti-Kurd– are people whom he is ready to work with.
It’s great that, in rhetoric and also possibly in reality, Talabani is not presenting himself merely as a patsy for the occupation forces.
Also, that he seems to be aiming for, or prepared to accept, a complete withdrawal of US forces.
So the intra-Iraqi politics of this are getting interesting.