Word: sectarian
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...Islamist of the Dawa party who spent some of his exile in Iran (the rest was in Damascus, while Jaafari went to London); like Jaafari he owes his position to the backing of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Both men have been accused of having a sectarian outlook despite their public embrace of national unity; both are Iraqi nationalists who oppose the dismembering of Iraq into semi-autonomous mini states; both would also abide by the wishes of Iraq's leading Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who helped pave the way for this deal...
...Iraqi leaders if he is to have any chance of improving on Jaafari, however: He lacks a majority in the legislature, and will need to find allies on an issue-by-issue basis to pursue his legislative agenda. Since consensus is no easy feat in in light of the sectarian tensions of all of the major blocs in the legislative assembly, Maliki may simply end up commanding a weaker central government...
...then there are the issues. The Kurdish, Sunni and U.S. objections to Jaafari were based less on style than substance, and it's not clear Maliki will be very different: critics, for instance, saw Jaafari as wedded to a sectarian outlook that precluded offering greater power to the Sunnis in the hope of drawing them in, unwilling to rein in the militias associated with his own sect, and (in the case of the Kurds) hostile to a federalism that would allow the creation of de facto-independent regions. One early test will come over the next month as Maliki cobbles...
...SCIRI), the arch-rival of Jaafari's major backer, the radical cleric Moqtada Sadr. More likely is the emergence of a weak compromise candidate to preside over a fractious government facing divisive issues ranging from revising the constitution and oil revenues to dealing with the militias responsible for growing sectarian strife. Not surprising, then, that Secretary Rice warned Wednesday that violence in Iraq will continue after a new government is formed, and it will be subdued only gradually. What she didn't say, of course, was that she was presenting the best-case scenario...
...question of the nominee, although he had insisted that the Shi'ite bloc remain united at all costs. But a meeting Wednesday by UN representative Ashraf Qazi with the cleric, who refuses to talk to U.S. officials, may have prompted him to act out of concern over growing sectarian violence...