Desperation

"This is not a lot different than any other government. I remain extremely optimistic about a government being formed here that will be representative." U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden

"Iraq is still not out of danger, is still not a normal country." Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari

The general election took place back in March. The popular choice of the majority of voters is a secularist Shia who has the trust of many of Iraq's Sunnis. The current Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki is reluctant to leave his post. His party disputes a vote count giving a mostly Sunni bloc, Iraqiya, that humbling narrow edge over the current mostly Shiite bloc. Iraqis are looking for responsible leadership, but hopes for a government forming before fall seem remote.

This appears quite a bit different than any other government. What reason is there for optimism, one might wish to ask Mr. Biden. It is abundantly clear that Iraq, the people of the country, the factions, still harbour suspicion and hatred toward one another. Why would they not, since this simply reflects their traditional history of sectarian vitriol that latterly flamed into deadly violence?

Which continues, on a more subdued, but still horribly-mangled, malignant level to the present day. With suicide bombings erupting one after another, taking helpless civilian lives, wounding hundreds of people, destroying government buildings, and destroying trust and reliance in that government's ability to get itself together and deliver the country out of its ongoing crisis. What makes Joe Biden so confident?

Wishing. Because, come hell or high water America is preparing to pull its troops out of Iraq by December 2011, with its remaining 94 bases closing down. This is also precisely what the current government of Iraq demands. Whether its armed forces are up to the task of protecting the country from the violent attacks of the disruptive insurgent forces within is another story. And there is always neighbourly Iran, waiting on the sidelines.

Iraqi citizens are tired of the threat of viciously-present, imminent death. They are sick of insufficient civic amenities, fed up with an energy grid that cannot supply their needs. Above all, the threat to their safety, continually imperilled by a government, modelled Islamic-style on a working democracy, but not working out all that well, unfortunately.

All that oil production, and not enough potable water. All that petroleum fuel going out to furnish the international community with their energy needs, and the country that produces it through their great natural resources cannot yet manage to give its people security, afford them peace, and the basic necessities of a durable lifestyle; above all, hope for the future.

An invasion rescued them from a tyrant who kept the gears of civilian life operating fairly smoothly, with all its inequities and sporadic eruptions into state-sponsored population-mutilations and massacres. With foreign troops in protective place, and an influx of Muslim infiltrators determined to bring Islamist control to the country of a Sunni Salafist variety, violence between the sects was unleashed.

The country, divided into thirds - with the functioning Kurdish portion, and the pitiful spite-filled, hate-gushing murdering Shia and Sunni waging their eternal battle for dominance - is not a 'normal' country in the general sense of normalcy and nationhood.