News Brief: Obama hails new Iraqi government

Obama hails new Iraqi government
President Obama is calling Iraq’s power-sharing agreement for its new government another “milestone” for the country. After eight months of political deadlock since its March elections, Obama said the new government would be “representative, inclusive and reflect the will of the Iraqi people.” The President stressed that Iraq’s new leaders would have to treat all Iraqis as equals in the broad-based government. “There are still challenges to overcome but all indications are that the government will be representative, inclusive and reflect the will of the Iraqi people who cast their ballots in the last election,” he said at a news conference in South Korea today. In a late-night parliament session on Thursday, Iraqi politicians returned Jalal Talabani — the leader of the Kurdish alliance — to the presidency, and voted in a Sunni member of the Iraqiya coalition, Osama al-Nujaifi, as the new speaker of parliament. Nuri al-Maliki, a Shia, remains Prime Minister.

• Israeli PM Netanyahu and Secretary Clinton discuss salvaging Mideast peace talks.
• A Gaza-bound aid ship is diverted to Greece.
• Muslim cleric Omar Bakri is sentenced to life in prison in Lebanon.
• Secretary Clinton warns against Syria-Hezbollah arms smuggling.
• Saudi Arabia vows to help Yemen fight the al Qaeda threat.
• Kuwait asserts the rights of states to acquire nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Daily Snapshot

A Palestinian protester holding his national flag confronts an Israeli soldier during a demonstration against Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank village of Maasarah near Bethlehem on November 12, 2010 (MUSA AL-SHAER/AFP/Getty Images).

Arguments & Analysis
‘Four lessons from Iraq’s new government‘ (Tony Karon, Time)
The tentative formation of a new Iraqi government with Nuri al-Maliki as the returning Prime Minister is less indicative of who Iraqis wanted as their leader but rather who was the most viable candidate in securing consensus across an extremely divided political system. The government demonstrates both waning American influence over Iraqi politics and the steady Iranian role — though the latter doesn’t have the impact that it would like, either. Yet the ultimate legacy of the current government could have most to do with American policy in the broader Middle East. To wit: “Administration officials hailing the creation of an Iraqi government whose stakeholders range from radical anti-American Islamists to U.S.-backed moderates might raise a few eyebrows given Washington’s policy elsewhere in the region. After all, the U.S. refuses to engage with the likes of Hamas in the Palestinian territories or Hezbollah in Lebanon, in line with a view of the region as locked in a zero-sum conflict between U.S.-backed moderates and Iran-backed radicals. But Iraq’s new government spans those divisions. Many foes of Iranian influence in the region have long viewed as naive the U.S. belief that such influence can simply be wished or blown away. Just like Iran’s allies in Iraq, Hamas and Hezbollah have demonstrated their support via the ballot box. But in the interests of stability in Iraq, the U.S. has accepted the electorate’s verdict and adopted a policy of integration of all stakeholders. In the years ahead, Washington will find itself pressed to extend the pragmatism it has demonstrated in Iraq to other conflicts in the region.”

‘Can there be justice as well as stability‘ (The Economist)
The tension in Lebanon is palpable as the country prepares for likely verdicts in the Special Tribunal on Lebanon (STL) by the end of the year. With the likelihood that Hezbollah members will be implicated in the tribunal, many commentators worry that the verdicts could tear the country asunder with internal divisions. Perhaps most “ominously, voices sympathetic to Hezbollah whisper that its militia, widely seen as far tougher than Lebanon’s ill-equipped conscript army, is ready to take swift control of ports, borders and main cities. Such a move might well provoke Israeli generals, whose itch to tame the Shia party is as intense as it was when they launched their fierce but inconclusive war in 2006, after a spat between Hezbollah and an Israeli border patrol. In Lebanon’s polarized landscape Hezbollah’s large core of loyalists is unlikely to be shaken, even by firm evidence of the party’s involvement in the killing of Mr. Hariri and others. Some of its allies, however, especially in the Christian camp, may prove less immune to repulsion.”

‘Present at the founding: what the API framers intended‘ (BitterLemons.org)
The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative (API) has been hailed by some as a wonder of diplomatic achievement, and perhaps the best option available to Israel to realize, comprehensively, its dream of peace with the Arab world. 8 years on, however, the status of the API remains unclear as progress on the Israel-Palestinian track remains mired in mutual distrust and at least temporary paralysis. Four individuals who were involved in the development of the API, Marwan Muasher, Nabeel Shaath, Amr Moussa, and Ezzedine Choukri Fishere, reflect on the significance of the initiative and what the situation looks like now on the prospects for its realization. Bottom line from Muasher: “It is unlikely that further negotiations between the two parties will change these conditions. But a regional agreement, one that is based on both the Clinton parameters and the Arab Peace Initiative, is both possible and, I dare say, desirable for the two sides. The conflict has finally reached a point where postponing difficult decisions today in the hope of better conditions tomorrow only creates conditions that will prove even harder to address in the future.”