Word: straws
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...visit of Condi Rice and Jack Straw to Baghdad may have sounded the death knell on the candidacy of Ibrahim Jaafari for a second term as prime minister. Rice made clear the U.S. disdain for a second Jaafari term, saying Iraq needed a leader who could build a national unity coalition, which the incumbent had failed to do. With the Kurds and Sunnis already committed to reject Jaafari's nomination, the Rice visit seemed to embolden even the prime minister's Shi'ite rivals: For the first time, the largest faction of Jaafari's Shi'ite alliance, the Supreme Council...
There?s a saying in Washington that diplomacy is the art of getting someone else to have your way. For Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, the most senior diplomats of the nations that invaded Iraq three years ago, the way is clear: Iraqi politicians must lay aside sectarian and factional differences, and sometimes plain old ego-tripping, and quickly form a ?national unity? coalition government to fulfill the promise of the unprecedented national elections...
...skepticism certainly in my country is understandable,? Straw admitted at the same press conference, ?as long as there appears to be slower progress than anticipated...
...argued that the U.S. pressure against Jaafari and his current chief political ally, firebrand cleric Moqtada al Sadr, could actually backfire and bolster their position with a wave of anti-U.S. sentiment. Nonetheless, internal pressures on Jaafari to withdraw are mounting. On the same day that Rice and Straw made their visit, a senior member of the Shi'ite alliance asked Jaafari to step down, making a schism likely within the national assembly's leading voting block. If a faction of the alliance (the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) backs out of its agreement to vote...
...pair sent strong signals that they respect the Shi'ite alliance?s right to nominate the prime minister. Just hours before flying out of Iraq, Rice and Straw praised the most influential Shi'ite religious leader, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, for his ?wisdom? and emphasized the reality that the name for the top job will come from the ?largest voting block,? the Shi'ite alliance. In light of efforts to bring Sunnis into the political process, some Shi'ites were feeling neglected and the diplomats' rhetoric recognized the restraint Shi'ite groups have shown and the compromises they...