Word: iraq
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...opposed by the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), the Sunni party loathed by the sheiks. The IIP won control of the Anbar provincial government in the last election, when most of the sheiks boycotted the vote. Now the chieftains want to supplant the IIP as the main voice of Iraq's Sunnis. Backing the SOFA and al-Maliki allows them to distinguish themselves from the IIP. The sheiks, in short, are playing democratic politics...
...main event. A portable dais is hauled into a corner of the quadrangle, and a series of sheiks troop up to it and make brief speeches. Their political inexperience is revealed by their language, which is absurdly over the top. Opponents of the SOFA are denounced as "enemies of Iraq" and "antinationals." There are ad hominem attacks on some of the politicians opposed to the agreement. The IIP is not mentioned by name, but nobody here is in any doubt that most of the vitriol is aimed at it. Some of the speakers come out of left field, attacking Kurdish...
...agree as quickly as possible. Then it's back to the singing and dancing, and now some of the sheiks are coaxed to join in. A poet, clad incongruously in leather jacket and trousers, loudly declaims the virtues of patriotism and warns against those who would seek to hurt Iraq. Again, there are knowing smirks all around: he's talking, of course, about...
...pictures of five years of U.S. troops in Iraq...
...pictures of Iraq's revival...