Iraqi government starts to take shape

"As it is now, they've expended some of their honeymoon capital," says Mr. Barkey, at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa.

Key to the government's credibility with Iraqis will be making improvements on the ground. Basic services like electricity are still shoddy and many ministries have been unable to carry out the most basic functions for weeks, like renewing driver's licenses.

People "hope the new government is going to do something for them, especially the security situation," says Nabil Mohammed, a senior instructor in the Center for International Studies at Baghdad University. "We hope they can succeed in their task and do something for the country. [But] I know it's not easy."

The agreement on the presidency council holds out hope that other key issues that have been held up can now be addressed. In effect, approval of the presidency opens the way to forming the rest of the government - and is thus a sign that the two largest groups, conservative religious Shiites and Kurds, are finally past logjams on various issues.

The new government is only supposed to last until elections next December. And once the government is formed the assembly can finally get down to its real work, writing a permanent constitution. That is supposed to be finished by Aug. 15 - unless lawmakers ask for a six-month extension, which many Iraqi leaders are hinting is increasingly likely.

"If it took them this long to choose leaders with an uncomplicated majority in parliament, it seems wishful thinking that they could finish up on time on the constitution," says Mr. Barkey. "It takes up much more fundamental issues."

The most prickly among those, he says, will be the role of religion in the constitution and in Iraqi public life, and the setting of internal boundaries of the new Iraqi federation. That refers primarily to the boundaries of the Kurdistan region, where the northern city of Kirkuk will fall in the new demarcation, and therefore how Iraq's northern oil revenues will be divided.

The government "is going to have to start delivering services and security, or they are going to lose the population," Marr says. "At the same time these big issues like religion in government and basic rights have such impact on the country's longer term prospects. The two are going to have to be balanced."

That is where outside powers like the US come in, Marr says: not spelling things out for the new leaders, but helping on the public's day-to-day needs so the assembly can get the constitution right.

• Correspondent Jill Carroll in Baghdad contributed to this report.

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