Do Baghdad’s two empty [cabinet] chairs get filled first with the Iraqi militias disarming after or do the weapons go first and the cabinet forms behind them? Gaza runs one way the armed movement hands over its weapons under supervision and only then does a new government step onto the ground it leaves. The weapons go first and authority follows. Our read is that Baghdad runs in that same order and the two chairs stay empty for exactly this reason. Nobody is handed Interior and Defense, the seats that decide who commands Iraq’s guns until it is settled whose guns still exist. The disarmament is not the obstacle standing in front of the cabinet it is the thing that has to clear before the Iraqi cabinet can mean anything at all.Reset Intelligence
