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...support for his position on the streets, Sistani won over a majority of the Governing Council and forced Bremer to bring in the United Nations to rule on the viability of elections - and in the process, the Shiite leader appears to have succeeded in giving the writ of the UN greater weight than the Bush administration in determining Iraq's political future. That may be a practical necessity, since Sistani refuses even to meet with U.S. officials...
...result of last week's visit to Iraq by UN representative Lakhdar Brahimi has been to reinforce the demand for elections, although he also appears to have confirmed Bremer's view that a valid poll can't be held before year's end. More importantly, Brahimi also indicated that most Iraqis share Washington's concern to restore their sovereign authority by July 1. Asked about how he plans to resolve the conundrum of to whom the keys should be handed on June 30, Bremer indicated last weekend that he was waiting for the UN's recommendations...
...currently outside of it, such as the firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The IGC is reportedly also considering the option of a new provisional government being appointed by a national gathering of stakeholders, convened not under the auspices of the U.S. or the IGC, but rather by the UN or the Arab League. Washington's tutelage of Iraq's political transition appears to be drawing quickly to a close, with uncertain political implications. This week, for example, Bremer vowed to veto a move by the current President of the IGC, the Islamist Abdul Hamid, to make Islamic Shariah...
...Instead, the Bush administration quickly abandoned the inspection process when it became clear that it was not producing evidence to back the case for war. Washington simply declared Iraq non-compliant and launched military action, even though this made no sense in light of what was emerging from the UN process that the U.S. itself had demanded. That was the principal reason the Bush administration failed to win a UN mandate...
...Nobody watching the issue unfold from the summer of 2002 could doubt that the decision to fight a war of choice against Iraq had been made before the inspections even started - indeed, the administration had to fiercely debate whether to go back to the UN at all, and President Bush did so only once he'd been convinced that it would bring more allies to his war effort. The invasion force was already being deployed in the region even before the first inspectors returned. And the time frame Washington allowed for the inspection was determined not by the outcome...