The WSJ reports,"tensions eased slightly in Iraq on Tuesday as local factions called for calm and many welcomed the nomination of a new prime minister—including the country's most powerful Shiite militia—offering early signs of a potentially peaceful way forward in forming a new government.
The reprieve comes a day after a high-stakes political confrontation that raised the prospect of violence as Nouri al-Maliki, who sought a third term as prime minister, aggressively rejected the nomination of Haider al-Abadi and vowed to dispute it in the courts. Deployment of security forces in Baghdad also raised concerns that Mr. Maliki might resort to the use of force.
But on Tuesday, a spectrum of voices came out in support of the president's decision and his nominee, Mr. Abadi, and Mr. Maliki himself urged security forces not to take sides in the political confrontation. Mr. Maliki stays on in his position as caretaker prime minister until Mr. Abadi, a member of Mr. Maliki's own Dawa party, tries to form a government within a 30-day time frame outlined in the constitution.
In a statement, Mr. Maliki's office said he met with security chiefs and urged them "to distance from the political crisis." A picture showed him sitting at the head of a long table with some 30 uniformed police and army personnel, whom the statement said he instructed "not to interfere, and to leave this matter to the people, the politicians and the law."
But in the same statement, Mr. Maliki continued to defend the constitution as the only way to preserve Iraq, a reference to his own bid to serve a third four-year term as prime minister, which he views as a constitutional right. He warned otherwise of a "setback" that would be "no less dangerous than that of Mosul," the northern city seized by Islamic militants on June 10—the event that sent Iraq into its worst political and military crisis in years and began to polarize national opinion on Mr. Maliki.
The caretaker prime minister, who alienated the Sunni political community and alarmed Shiites with an increasingly personal bid for power, showed no sign on Monday of backing down, using two television appearances to slam the president's decision and vow to push through his constitutional right.
In a sign of the broad rejection of—and warning against—his defiance, support poured in from international governments in the hours that followed for Mr. Abadi as he begins the difficult process of forming a cabinet. U.S. President Barack Obama interrupted a vacation to make a brief announcement to praise what he said was a positive step toward a more inclusive government in Iraq.
In the semiautonomous Kurdish region of Iraq, where a push by the group calling itself the Islamic State toward the regional capital Erbil drew in U.S. airstrikes, officials also said they supported Mr. Abadi. In part, some officials said, that was just because it meant getting closer to seeing the end of Mr. Maliki's tenure".
