BAGHDAD – As election results trickle in, politics have become Iraq’s new spectator sport.
Yesterday, I talked for hours with a group of Iraqi politicians and businessmen in the garden of one of Baghdad’s most lavish villas. The house was a big square mansion covered with red and green lights and surrounded by palm trees. Some Iraqis have done very well as this country’s economy has opened up to the West.
By the swimming pool, and next to a wood burning barbecue, we sat discussing how the new government might ultimately come together. Our conversation was frequently interrupted by coffees brought on trays and plates of delicious kebabs. (The villa’s owner only eats the meat of young male sheep, believing their meat to be more tender. Childbirth, he said, makes the meat of ewes harder and less tasty.)
As we ate, the conversation swirled with a thousand possibilities and ambiguities, much in the same way sports fans speculate about possible trades, injuries, lineups and face-offs that ultimately determine which teams make it to the Super Bowl.
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| Shwan Mohammed / AFP - Getty Images |
| Iraqi electoral officials count votes in the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah on Thursday following Iraq’s second general elections since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. |
None of the guests at the villa thought Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would win enough votes to form a new government on his own. Everyone agreed that he will have to join his main rivals in a coalition. But how? When? Who’s in? Who’s out? How will it play out? No one knew, but everyone was happy to speculate.
After four hours, I was stuffed – and twitching from so much coffee – and utterly confused. One thing, however, was clear: it will take weeks, or more likely months, to put together a new government.
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