Another Iraqi moment

THERE ARE NO MORE MILESTONES left for Iraq. Check that: There are no more official milestones. With the announcement Friday of the final results of last month’s parliamentary elections, markers of progress for Iraq will arise more from its own political process than from some U.S.-manufactured timetable.

The results, announced more than a month after an election that was flawed but valid, contained few surprises. A coalition of Shiite religious parties won almost half of the seats in the new Iraqi parliament, while Kurdish and Sunni groups won about a fifth each. That means the dominant Shiite parties will have to form a coalition to control the 184 seats (out of 275 total) necessary to form a new government.

The numbers notwithstanding, the biggest winners in the election may well be the Sunnis, who boycotted elections for the interim parliament a year ago -- and paid for it. They had only 17 seats in the interim national assembly, and their influence over the drafting of the new constitution was minimal. The resulting document gave the Sunnis less power than they are accustomed to; although they make up just 20% of Iraq’s population, they ruled the country under Saddam Hussein.

Since then, Sunni radicals have formed the backbone of the insurgency that has wracked the country. Now the Sunnis will have a greater say in the new government, whose first task will be to amend the constitution. Whether more involvement in politics will result in less involvement in violence is hard to say. That has always been the hope, but so far it hasn’t worked out that way.

The Kurds and Shiites, meanwhile, will have to make political peace with their once (and current) antagonists. So far they have said all the right things, emphasizing their willingness to form a government of national unity that includes the Sunnis. The Sunnis, for their part, have pledged to participate in negotiations.

Secular Shiites, who like the Sunnis do not want religious Shiites to become too powerful, lost seats in the election and so may be more interested in an alliance with the Sunnis.

Of course, political prognostication is as foolish in Iraq as it is in the United States, probably even more so. And the Bush administration has pointed to supposed milestones for Iraq so often -- there was the transfer of power from the U.S. to Iraqis in June 2004, elections for a transitional government in January 2005, a constitutional referendum in October 2005 and the national elections last month -- that any claims for another are properly greeted with skepticism. The only thing all these milestones had in common was their failure to stop the violence.

Still, now that Iraq has a duly elected parliament, and its fitful progress toward democracy is continuing apace, one last milestone is now closer: the day when the U.S. can withdraw its troops from Iraq.