Iraq’s Unheralded Political Progress

by Jason Gluck, Foreign Policy: We’ve been hearing for months that the U.S. troop surge has been a security success and a political failure. But with little media fanfare, Iraqis may have just found the key to resolving their differences: old-fashioned politics. . . . Amid the recriminations for the lack of political progress, few seem to have noticed what may have been a watershed moment for Iraqi democracy. Indeed, February 13, 2008, might someday be remembered as the day Iraq’s political class finally showed itself capable of compromise and accommodation.

On February 13 the Iraqi parliament simultaneously passed three new laws: one that sets the relationship between the central and provincial governments, a second giving amnesty to thousands of detainees, and a third setting the 2008 national budget. Each piece of legislation is important in its own right, but how the overall compromise came about may prove even more significant than the laws themselves . . . [Read More]

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