Iraq's next big hurdle: unity government

Critics say Mr. Jabr has turned the Iraqi police force into a glorified Shiite militia that indiscriminately targets Sunni Arab neighborhoods and cities in an attempt to quash the insurgency.

"We must have the Defense and the Interior to ensure the security of our cities, and to stop the terrorizing of our supporters," says Salman al-Jumayli, a spokesperson for the Sunni Accordance Front, which has 44 seats in the coming parliament.

For Shiites such concessions are unlikely. After decades of suffering under the old regime, the recently empowered Shiites are not about to relinquish control of the ministries that were responsible for much of that oppression. "We won the elections and these ministries are our right," says Jawad al-Malaki, a leading member of the Shiite Dawa Party.

The issue of de- Baathification - a ban on former Baath Party members in government - will also figure prominently in the dealmaking. Shiites call many of the Sunni Arabs who have risen to the fore in recent months Saddamists, Baathists, and outright terrorists.

"The Shiites have turned de-Baathification into de-Sunnification," says Mr. Jumayli. "They're only targeting Sunnis and they've turned it into a weapon to get rid of all their political opponents."

Shiite unwillingness to negotiate on the issue has added to the Sunni Arabs' sense of exclusion and marginalization. It has also meant that even those posts that have gone to Sunni Arabs, such as the outgoing Ministry of Defense, have gone to Sunnis handpicked by Shiites, who are largely out of step with the majority of the country's Sunni Arabs.

What to do with the country's infant Constitution is another issue negotiators will have to address.

The drafting process and referendum on the historic charter last fall signaled a turning point in Sunni Arab willingness to engage with the political process. Their reluctant endorsement, however, came with a condition: The document could be amended at a later date to strengthen language aimed at preventing the breakup of Iraq. Earlier this month, some Shiite leaders seemed to be reneging on that agreement, calling any substantial changes to the Constitution unacceptable.

With such significant differences to overcome, many worry the Shiites will decide that a true national unity government is more trouble than it's worth, and team up with the Kurds as they did in the last government.

But even if Iraq's disparate factions find a way to put aside their differences to form an inclusive government, true national unity remains elusive, says Mohammed al-Sheikhly, president of the Center for Transitional Justice in Iraq.

"We got rid of Saddam Hussein, but now we have 40 Saddam Husseins, a bunch of political leaders with a power complex, who only want to rule. They are all hypocrites whose programs talk about national unity, and a united Iraq, but whose actions say the opposite."

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