Iraq's prime minister, a Shiite, flew to Saddam Hussein's hometown and told Sunni tribal chieftains that all Iraqis must unite in the fight to crush al Qaida in Iraq and extremist Shiite militias "to save our coming generations".With the US Congressional majority increasingly eager to get out of Iraq, Nouri Maliki's bold incursion into Tikrit - a city once pampered by Saddam, its favourite son - underlined the prime minister's determination to save his paralysed government from collapse and prevent further disillusionment in Washington.
The sharp alteration of political course - a willingness to talk with former enemies - suggested a new flexibility from the hard-line religious Shiite.
| Rather hard to run a parliamentary government if a big chunk of your cabinet won't show up and your majority is dwindling. Might be a good thing for the government to fall -- parliamentarily speaking -- and let the Iraqis go to the polls again. |