Iraq’s two rival Shiite blocs have finalized their merger and have formed the largest bloc in parliament, state-run al-Iraqiya television reported on June 10. The report quotes Hassan al-Sunyad, a senior official from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law (SoL) coalition (89 seats), as saying the SoL has joined forces with the Shiite Islamist Iraqi National Alliance (INA) (70 seats) to create a single entity known as National Alliance.
Stratfor.com reports that this is an effort to negate the outcome of the March 7 elections in which the Sunni-supported centrist alliance, al-Iraqiya List, came in first place with 91 seats. This latest development really means that the new super Shia bloc is in a position to lead the new coalition government and thus dominate it, the issue of its nominee for prime minister remains unresolved, though the latest reports suggest that the choices have been narrowed down to al-Maliki and INA’s Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who currently holds one of the two vice-presidential positions.
This essentially means that Shia Iran will have great influence in Iraqi politics.
Not reported in the major U.S. news media and not good for the U.S.
