All Politics Is Local

This seems to be a significant, but overlooked, dynamic in Iraq right now: the eroding legitimacy of the Iraqi parliament, even as the Bush administration struggles to hold them accountable to a legislative agenda focused on reconciliation. Via NYT:

The same forces of entropy and obstinacy have also severed links between the party leaders and their constituencies. In Shiite areas of southern Iraq, Sunni areas of the west and for Kurds in the north, Iraq’s central government has become increasingly irrelevant as competing groups within each faction maneuver at the local level for control of public money and jobs. In many cases, especially through mosques, Iran and other foreign powers often provide more institutional support than Baghdad.

Not that the central government ever had much control over what was happening outside Baghdad (or even inside Baghdad). Obviously the Baghdad Security Plan isn't working as intended, but even to the extent it is (i.e. creating some sort of "zone of stability" inside Baghdad to facilitate political reconciliation), parliament is not taking advantage of it. From today's WP:

Iraqi leaders have made "little progress" on the overarching political goals that the stepped-up security operations are intended to help advance, the report said, calling reconciliation between Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni factions "a serious unfulfilled objective."

As fired laborers protest in southern Iraq and Kurdish factions feud with Sunnis in Mosul and Kirkuk, it's apparent that Tip O'Neill's wisdom is just as true in Basra as it is in Boston.