What the neighbours are up to

Patrick Cockburn in Iraq

On 20 May, in a stuffy hall inside Baghdad’s Green Zone, behind the seven lines of sandbagged checkpoints, razor wire and sniffer dogs that protect it from the streets beyond, a new Iraqi cabinet was voted into office. Five months after they elected their parliament, Iraqis finally had a new government. This government included a minister for tourism but, despite the war raging across the country, no minister of the interior or of defence: Shia and Sunni leaders were still arguing over who should control those jobs. The much vaunted handover of sovereignty in 2004 was forgotten, as Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, proclaimed the virtues of a new administration that is largely his creation. Last year the Shia – who make up 60 per cent of the Iraqi population – won two elections, but the US has fought to deny them complete control of the Iraqi state. ‘So far,’ a high-ranking US official was quoted as saying, ‘the Shia have not demonstrated that they can govern, and they have to demonstrate that now.’