During an interview this morning on “Meet the Press,” David Gregory interviewed Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) about the war, and noted the political dynamic surrounding the Maliki government.
“Seventy-four members of parliament have boycotted, as you say, the 275-member body. There’s 12 ministers from the 38-member Cabinet no longer attending Cabinet meetings. There was an oil revenue law where they would share between Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites that was passed but without Sunni participation, which renders it virtually meaningless, and the agreement on the oil revenue part has still not been struck. So this is that fundamental question for the government of Nouri al-Maliki: Can he actually govern a unity government?”
The answer is increasingly clear.
For four years, Iraqis have been waiting in lines at gas stations in Baghdad, waiting for their lives to get better. But, as CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports, the situation has gotten worse and their government is now in crisis.
That has led senior Iraqi leaders to demand drastic change. CBS News has learned that on July 15, they plan to ask for a no-confidence vote in the Iraqi parliament as the first step to bringing down the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Even those closest to the Iraqi prime minister, from his own party, admit the political situation is desperate.
“I feel there is no strategy, so the people become hopeless,” said Faliy al Fayadh, an MP from the Dawa Party. “You can live without petrol, without electricity, but you can’t live without hope.”
The Bush administration’s security goals aren’t being met, its political goals aren’t being met, and now the president’s team is left scrambling for “alternative evidence of progress” — in lieu of, say, actual evidence of progress — while the Maliki government falls apart at the seams.
No wonder Colin Powell is now, five years later, arguing that he tried to stop this calamity before it started.
