Forward.(Iraq political aspects)

THE selection of a compromise prime minister in Iraq is a major victory for that country's fledgling political class, and for the Bush administration. Purveyors of doom on Iraq now have some explaining to do: If the country is in the midst of a full-scale civil war fatal to our project there, how is it that elected representatives of the major factions were able to sit down and hammer out an agreement on the top positions in a national-unity government?

The deal on the prime minister brings within reach the Bush administration's long-term goal of creating a government that includes all Iraqi factions, getting Sunni parties into the political process once and for all. The hope is that this will reduce violence by dragging elements of the Sunni insurgency into legitimate politics as well.

The negotiations over a prime minister were messy, dragged on too long, and represented a loss of momentum from the triumph of the December 15 elections. But the final result is welcome. The notoriously ineffective prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who two months ago had narrowly won the endorsement of the Shiite parties to stay in office, is out of the job. He was backed by the thug-cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who engaged in a power struggle with the U.S. over whether Jaafari would stay in power and--crucially--lost. The Shiite coalition slowly realized that Jaafari was a non-starter given the opposition of the U.S. and Kurds and Sunnis, and picked another candidate, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

Maliki has a reputation as an experienced, skilled politician, but obviously has significant challenges ahead. It is vital that clean and effective officials be put in charge of the ministries of defense and interior (the latter has responsibility for the police). While progress has been made in reconstituting an Iraqi army, the police are still in disarray, infiltrated by Shiite thugs.

Meanwhile, two ...