'Pivotal year' for Iraqi politics

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By Jonny Dymond BBC News, Baghdad Parliament has approved a new flag, but political business is slow"Iraqi politics," said the spokeswoman at the US embassy in Baghdad, "is very complex."

In the middle of an otherwise unremarkable briefing it seemed like another banal brush-off. In fact, it was a profound truth.

As well as being very complex, Iraqi politics is very important. It may not seem like that on the Baghdad street.

To most people, finding and keeping a job, getting hold of some petrol or hoping that the mains power doesn't give out (it does, very frequently) is a lot more important than what the 250-odd MPs get up to in the barricaded parliament, deep within the secure Green Zone.

But the fact that people in Baghdad now worry about the abysmal state of public services and the economy is, bizarrely, a step forward.

This time last year, the concern for most was survival; finding a neighbourhood where they were safe from death squads and militias; hoping that they or their children were not going to be caught up in one of the bombings that brought Baghdad to its knees.

Grim picture

Three factors are credited with bringing the violence down; the "surge" of an extra 30,000 US troops; the ceasefire announced by Moqtada Sadr, which reined in his Mehdi Army; and the Sunni backlash against the barbarism of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which led to the "Awakening" - a string of Sunni police forces and intelligence networks that have all but driven al-Qaeda in Iraq out of the western province of Anbar, and Baghdad.

It's around this point that the politics becomes important.

The "surge" was never designed to defeat the insurgency; it was introduced to give Iraq's politicians the breathing space to make some political progress.

With the New Year has come a rather urgent stocktaking. And, as even the guardedly optimistic officials admit (there are no unguardedly optimistic officials anymore) it's a pretty dismal picture so far.

Three plus one: PM Nouri Maliki (second from right) and the presidential councilJust one major piece of "reconciliation" legislation has been passed by the Iraqi parliament - the Accountability and Justice Act, designed to reverse the catastrophic de-Baathification order issued by the Coalition Provision Authority in 2004.

Still waiting either to be drafted or presented to parliament is a law on provincial elections, an electoral law, a law on how oil and gas should be managed and explored, a law on how oil revenues should be shared out, and revisions to the constitution to work out how and when to vote on the status of the northern city of Kirkuk.

Officials and diplomats put most of the blame for the near paralysis on the office of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki; his critics (and there are many) lambast him for refusing to work with other members of his coalition.

Strong message

The Iraqi parliament was never going to be a fast moving beast; democracy didn't have deep roots in Iraq and besides, the whole system was in turmoil following the invasion and subsequent insurgency.

The US military surge has helped calm the violenceBut the Americans were taken aback by the lack of political will within Mr Maliki's circle. In August last year, they thought they had a deal with the prime minister that he would work more closely with the presidential council - Jalal Talabani and his two deputies.

But as summer turned to winter, little or no legislative progress was made. Mr Maliki, says one diplomat, felt that the testimony of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker to Congress in September last year had let him off the hook.

Late in December last year came a spine-stiffening visit from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. What is diplomatically described as a strong message was put to Mr Maliki - his coalition partners were only waiting for a signal from the US to move against him.

Deposing him might only be the least worst option but if the paralysis continued then something had to give.

Election hopes

In January, more than a year after the US had hoped, the Accountability and Justice Act passed through the Iraqi parliament. There is once again talk of Prime Minister Maliki working more closely with the presidential council - a so-called 3+1 arrangement, and reaching out further as well.

Everyone from Condoleezza Rice down now acknowledges that the US timetable was unrealistic. And they are deeply wary of talking up the current situation.

"There is now," says one senior diplomat highly trained in the art of not overdoing things "the hint of a possibility of something successful emerging from this trauma."

But for that to happen there has to be political progress; in particular, officials are hoping that provincial elections might provide Iraq's Sunnis with some representation and bring a new generation of Shia leaders to the fore.

But for elections to happen, the Iraqi parliament must move on laws defining the provinces' powers and how elections should take place

"Every year," says the diplomat carefully "we say it is a pivotal year." He pauses. "But this year really is pivotal."