What Iraqi Government Are We Dying For?

Iraq Parliament Finds a Quorum Hard to Come By

BAGHDAD, Jan. 23 — Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the speaker of Parliament, read a roll call of the 275 elected members with a goal of shaming the no-shows.

Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister? Absent, living in Amman and London. Adnan Pachachi, the octogenarian statesman? Also gone, in Abu Dhabi.

Others who failed to appear Monday included Saleh Mutlak, a senior Sunni legislator; several Shiites and Kurds; and Ayad al-Samaraei, chairman of the finance committee, whose absence led Mr. Mashhadani to ask: “When will he be back? After we approve the budget?”

It was a joke barbed with outrage. Parliament in recent months has been at a standstill. Nearly every session since November has been adjourned because as few as 65 members made it to work, even as they and the absentees earned salaries and benefits worth about $120,000.

Even with the incredible incentive of a $120,000 salary, the members of the Iraqi parliament can’t even be bothered to show up to run their own country. Last year, Juan Cole pointed out that 40% of the Iraqi parliament don’t even live in Iraq.

Contrary to Bush, we’re not there supporting a fledgling democracy while it becomes self-sustaining. There is no functioning government in Iraq, let alone anything resembling a democracy. There is a US puppet, Nouri al Maliki, who’s a stage managed front for al Sadr’s Shiite theocracy. There is nothing there worth supporting.