On March 26, 2007, the Arab League declared “that the Iraqi Government should be a national government for all Iraqis – a real national unity government – and respecting the will of the Iraqi people in all its components to decide their political future.” On May 2, 2007, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom put Iraq on its watch list for violators explaining that “the Iraqi government has engaged in human rights violations through its state security forces, including arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention without due process, extrajudicial executions, and torture” and “the Iraqi government tolerates religiously based attacks and other religious freedom abuses carried out by armed Shi’a factions including the Jaysh al-Mehdi (Mahdi Army) and the Badr Organization.” In a U.S. Congress in which almost every opportunity to find disagreement between the Democrats and Republicans is seemingly exploited with an efficiency that would make corporate “Six Sigma” programs appear wasteful in comparison, both sides have joined together to condemn the Iraqi parliament’s plans to recess this July without their having approved national reconciliation and oil-sharing legislation. Considering that Iraq’s present government is a sectarian government dedicated to advancing sectarian interests, such developments in Iraq are not surprising.
