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...party after the Kurdish bloc, say they see a window of opportunity. As Iraq moves toward its first round of nationwide elections in nearly four years, a complex political map of new parties and fluid, cross-sectarian alliances suggest that the country may be slowly moving beyond the Shi'ite-Sunni divide that characterized the post-Saddam Hussein politics of previous years...
...start, the main Shi'ite and Sunni political blocs are crumbling. In three weeks of infighting over the resignation of the speaker of parliament and the task of appointing his replacement, the Sunni Tawafiq bloc has shrunk to just over half its original size of 44 MPs. In the past three years, parliament has also seen the ruling Shi'ite bloc slowly split apart. The most significant blow came in 2007 with the angry departure of dozens of followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. And the bloc's remaining big powers - al-Maliki's Dawa Islamic Party...
...Baghdad provincial council. Secular candidates say disillusionment with the legacy of those blocs is also creating a shift toward a more nonsectarian type of politics. "The Islamic party and the Islamic movements are retreating from the Iraqi streets. The Iraqi streets are becoming non-Sunni and non-Shi'ite," says another secular candidate, Nebras al-Ma'mouri. "Voters are looking for people outside of these things. I can't say all of Iraqi society is thinking this way, but I think a lot of people...
Israel has been wary of Hizballah coming to the aid of its Palestinian ally Hamas by opening up a fresh front. The Shi'ite group has done so in the past. In April 2002, during Israel's Defensive Shield operation to reoccupy the West Bank, Hizballah militants staged nearly daily assaults against Israeli military outposts in the Shebaa Farms, a strip of mountainside running along Lebanon's southeast border. This time around, however, Hizballah has confined its actions to fiery statements, speeches and demonstrations of support for the beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza. (See pictures of the heartbreak in Gaza...
...Hizballah and its allies in the opposition win and form the new parliamentary majority, it will greatly strengthen the organization's ability to deflect domestic and foreign demands that it dismantle its military wing. But with Lebanon still recovering from the 2006 conflict, few Lebanese, including its core Shi'ite support base, will thank Hizballah if it provokes a new war with Israel for the sake of its Hamas ally in Gaza...